278

immediately took off his coat (and to use the words of my in-formant, who was present), " set to work upon the body likea workman," and aided by the efficient apparatus and bene-volent help of Mr. Hollingsworth, the respected proprietor ofthe rooms, succeeded in restoring the youth to life and to hisfriends. That youth is my eldest son, now the indefatigablecurate of Staines. The first medical man was-a protestant;the second was the persecuted unto death, Dr. Rolph. Whichof these two was neighbour to him who was ready to die ?

I am, Sir, yours obediently,HENRY A. PLOW, B.D.,

Rector of Bradley, Hants.F.S.—I might add, that Sir George Grey, then Secretary-of-

State for the Home Department, on my representation to himof the above circumstances, immediately granted a free pardonto the four convicts, with settlement in one of our colonies.

Portchester, Feb. 2Sth, 1858.

HENRY A. PLOW, B.D.,Rector of Bradley, Hants.

To the Eclitor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—I have received the following subscriptions in behalfof Mrs. Rolph. I hope to add to the list next week, when Iwill transmit you a cheque for the amount.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,March, 1858. J. WlBLIN, F. R. C. S.J. WIBLIN, F.R.C.S.

A STUDENT’S GRIEVANCE.To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—The " Student’s Grievance," upon which you so ablycomment in your last number, is not confined to provincialhospitals. At St. Mary’s Hospital, during my period of stu-dentship, not only was a practising druggist in the neighbour-hood admitted to all the lectures, dresserships, &c., but he wasentrusted with the office of prescribing for out-patients, andfor months did the duty of two of the assistant-surgeons in thisrespect. I cannot but agree with you, Sir, that such proceed-ings show "an utter disregard for professional dignity andhonour." They certainly are a grave discouragement and in-justice to others, who do not run counter to the dignity of theprofession in their aspirations after worldly success.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,London, March, 1858, M. R. C. S.

THE LONDON HOSPITAL.To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—A letter in your journal of last week, from a corre-spondent who subscribes himself " A London Hospital Man,"contains a very grave error, on which the writer proceeds tofound some inferences and comments by no means compli-mentary to the London Hospital Medical College. Permit meto correct the error; the inferences and comments, being thenunsupported, may safely be left alone.Your correspondent asks, "if it be fair and honourable in

any public school to withhold, without due notice, prizes whichit has been accustomed to award to successful candidates ?"adding, " this, I am informed, the school in connexion withthe London Hospital is about to do."

W rere the " London Hospital Man" as well acquainted withmatters relating to the college in connexion with the hospitalas his style and title would seem to guarantee; or, with be-coming prudence, had he taken the trouble to ascertain thathis information was trustworthy before giving it to the world,he would have spared himself the pains he has been put to incalling the attention of your readers to this question. By asimple perusal of the prospectus of the London Hospital Col-lege, issued in October last, he might have discovered that theparagraph relating to the class prizes, contained in all previousprospectuses, has been expunged ; this amendment having beendecided on, after much consideration, at a full meeting of theprofessors held in June, 1857. Thus the class prizes havingbeen withdrawn from the list of supposed attractions set forthin the prospectus of the London Hospital Medical College,those gentlemen who entered last October did so with a fullknowledge that nn class prizes were promised or would be

awarded. In truth, judged by its results at the college withwhich I have the honour to be connected, the prize system hassignally failed. To gain these distinctions, the time of thepupil has been too often wholly engrossed by some one subjectof study, while others, with equal claim on his attention, havebeen altogether neglected. Moreover, there has generally beena sad want of vigorous, healthy competition, many of the mostmeritorious and best-informed students standing aloof, andtaking no interest in the matter.

These considerations determined the teachers of the LondonHospital College, in the interest of the student himself, to dis-continue the prize system. I have good reason to believe,too, that the London Hospital College, in giving up the classprizes, has only anticipated a recommendation of the Collegeof Surgeons.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,NICHOLAS PARKER, M.D.,

March, 1858. Hon. Sec. to the London Hospital Med. Coll.NICHOLAS PARKER, M.D.,

Hon. Sec. to the London Hospital Med. Coll.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.SIR,—In your last week’s edition of THE LANCET was in-

serted a letter on the non-distribution of prizes to the studentsof the London Hospital. I am sorry to say a more serious evilexists at that institution-that of lectures on anatomy beinggiven without demonstration upon the human body, not frontwant, as we have been for the last few weeks well supplied.Diagrams and dried preparations only are exhibited. Add tothis, no demonstrator is now to be met with in the dissecting-rooms, as the two who are sometimes in attendance are engagedin canvassing for the office of assistant-surgeon, so that thestudents have no one to apply to in any difficulty.By inserting the above you will much oblige many who are

anxious to become honourable members of the College of Sur-geons, but whose education is so much cramped that it is noeasy matter to obtain the requisite amount of knowledge for sodesirable an object.

I am, Sir, yours respectfully,March, 1858. ANOTHER LONDON HOSPITAL MAN.

DEATH OF BENJAMIN TRAVERS, ESQ., F.R.S.

WE regret that we have this week to announce the death, inthe 75th year of his age, of Mr. Travers, Surgeon-Extraordi-nary to the Queen, and Surgeon in Ordinary to H. R. H. thePrince Consort.

Benjamin Travers was born in 1783, being the second sonof a family of ten children. His father was a sugar-baker, inQueen-street, Cheapside ; his mother was the daughter of theRev. F. Spilsbury ; the family had great influence in the City,political as well as mercantile, and were staunch to Whig prin-ciples. He was early sent to a grammar school at Cheshunt, butafterwards was educated by private tuition, and then was placedin his father’s counting-house. He entertained a great disliketo mercantile pursuits, which increased as he became more ac.quainted with them, until he determined to embrace the medi-cal profession, and was accordingly, in 1800, apprenticed toMr., afterwards Sir, Astley Cooper. He was a hardworking

student, and gave demonstrations in anatomy to youngerpupils, and also established, and acted as secretary to, a clinicalsociety. He took his diploma in 1806, and then went to Edin-burgh, where he repeated some of Bichat’s experiments on theblood.

In 1807, he returned to London, and married Miss Morgan,the sister of the late surgeon to Guy’s Hospital. Notwithstand-his large city connexions, practice did not immediately cometohim. He demonstrated and lectured on anatomy in a littleroom in Guy’s Hospital; but his father’s affairs had becomegreatly embarrassed, and he had actually made up his mind to! obtain an assistant-surgeoncy in the East India Company, whenthe appointment of surgeon to that Company’s Corps of Volun-teers became vacant, and this post he obtained, although it was

also solicited by Mr. Ramsden, of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital,and Mr. Lucas of Guy’s.! In 1810 he became surgeon to the London Infimmary forDiseases of the Eyes, since called the London Ophthalmic Hos-

pital. In his address to the governors of that institution, heespecially points out, that he desires to take the appointment,

279

Dot as an octilist, but as a surgeon—a phrase -which is remark-able from the fact that he was the first surgeon who had givenmore than a mere passing attention to the diseases of the eyes.Previous to the commencement of the present century, oph-thalmic practice was chiefly in the hands of quacks, who wentabout the country performing operations on the eyes with equalboldness and ignorance. Therefore the assumption of thisbranch by one who wished to make it a part of scientific sur-gery was a great advance.

In 1S13 Mr. Travers was elected a fellow of the RoyalSociety ; in 1815 he was appointed surgeon to St. Thomas’sHospital, and in the following year he took Mr. Cooper’s housein Old Broad-street, and then his practice became both largeand lacrative, amounting to about £6000 a year. His health,however, was not good; for although of robust build and largeframe, he was subject to a functional derangement of the heart,with occasional fainting, which obliged him to forego part ofhis extensive practice. It was, we believe, with the intentionof diminishing his labours that he removed, in 1828, from theCity to Bruton-street, where he at once took a high position,but not the highest, Sir Benjamin Brodie having alreadyestablished himself in the first rank. This step, taken, we say,with the intention of decreasing his professional occupationsand of recovering health, perfectly succeeded. In the same

year he became president of the Medico-Chirurgical Society ; in 1833 he was elected on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, and subsequently became an examiner. He hasfilled the offices of vice-president and president to the College,and was the Hunterian orator in 1838. He was appointedSurgeon-Extraordinary to the Queen soon after her accession,and became afterwards Surgeon in Ordinary to Prince Albert.Thus he has taken most of the honours usually within thereach of distinguished surgeons, without, however, obtainingthe highest distinctions granted to the profession.

Mr. Travers was married three times: in 1809, to MissMorgan, as already stated; in 1813, to Miss Millet, a daughterof an East Indian director; and, in 1831, to the youngestdaughter of Colonel Stevens: and by these marriages had alarge family, the eldest of whom only, has been educated tothe profession.

Mr. Travers had a rooted antipathy to all publicity in themedical world, and to all reports of lectures, and of hospitalpractice. This feeling, which owed its origin, doubtless, to

early habits, and to the influence of the period in which hefirst began medical studies, was never overcome, insomuch.that in the last public speech he made the public press wasmentioned with considerable acerbity.Up to the time of his illness, Mr. Travers, was pretty regular

in his attendance at the Court of Examiners of the College ofSurgeons. He seldom, however, attended any of the medicalsocieties of late years: we heard him on two or three occasionswithin the last twenty years, at the Medico-Chirurgical Society,speak with great ability on papers read.As a lecturer, Mr. Travers was scholarly and illustrative.

He was a sound anatomist, but was never celebrated for arapid and dashing style of operating; but if safety be con-sidered as a test of good surgery, this quality must be con-ceded to him. It has been with justice remarked, that Mr.Travers, although a distinguished surgeon would have been agreater physician; and an examination of his writings showthat his mind was more especially turned to what may becalled the medical aspects of surgical disease. The number ofhis publications is considerable, and may be classed in formalvolumes, as clinical lectures published in " St. Thomas’s Hos-pital Reports," and as papers in the " Medico-ChirurgicalTransactions." The clinical lectures are ten in number, andcall for no special notice; the papers in the " Medico-Chirur-gical Transactions" are also ten, the last of which, in thetwenty-first volume, is the record of his operation for theremoval of a diseased clavicle, the subject of which quite re-covered the use of his arm. The formal volumes are " AnInquiry into the Process of Nature in Repairing Injuries of theIntestine," published in 1812. The " Surgical Essays" of SirAstley Cooper and Mr. Travers were published in 1818: thepapers, which the subject of our Memoir contributed, were onIritis, Phvmosis, and Paraphymosis, and on Wounds and Liga-tures of Veins. The first of these, as will presently be seen,was the most important of all Mr. Travers’s works. In 1820appeared " The Synopsis of the Diseases of the Eye, and theirTreatment; in 1824, " An Inquiry concerning the DisturbedState of the Vital Functions usually Denominated Cousti-tutional Irritation ;" in 1830, " Observations on the Pathologyof Venereal Affections;" in 1835, "A Further Inquiry con-cerning Constitutional Irritation, and the Pathology of the

Nervous System;’-’ in 1844, " Physiology of Inflammation andthe Healing Process."

i Our review of Mr. Travers’s distinguished career would beincomplete unless we distinctly referred to one of the greatestimprovements in modern therapeutics, which was in a verygreat degree due to him. In the third edition of his " Synopsisof Diseases of the Eye," he wrote-" I think it right to statethat the salutary effects of mercury in iritis, unassociated withany specific action, was an observation made at the same timeby Dr. Farre and myself at the London Infirmary for Diseasesof the Eye. It was first given to the public in the secondedition of Mr. Saunders’ work, then in the press. I am quitesatisfied that the observation was original, notwithstanding allthe attempts of German scholars to convince us that at Vienna.aud elsewhere it was a matter lippis et toi?so?-ibits notum."Subsequently in his " Essay on Iritis" above alluded to, Mr.Travers makes the following important deduction in thesewords : " The view, which in the case of iritis we are able totake of the operation of mercury upon a part undergoing adhe-sive inflammation, ought not to be confined to this case ; itmust be capable of extension and application to other organs ina similar condition." Previous to this time the use of mercurywas confined almost entirely to venereal affections. Sincethen its value in opposing inflammation has become recognisedin thousands of cases. It is our sheet anchor, whether em-ployed to check the inflammatory condition itself, or to pro-mote the absorption of deposits. The steps of this discovery,as it may be called, were the following ;-First, syphilitic iritiswas observed to yield to the influence of this drug; then non-specific iritis was found equally amenable ; subsequently thegreat advance was made in applying this fact to the wholerange of inflammatory diseases. It is only due to the late Mr.Travers that he should be acknowledged as the originator ofthis invaluable contribution to medical science.

In person, Mr. Travers was somewhat stout, and abovethe middle height; he had a singularly-expressive and finely-chiselled face, and looked " the perfect gentleman." He wasnot at all unlike the late Lord Melbourne.Mr. Travers died of disease of the heart, from which he had

suffered ever since his first visit to Edinburgh, in 1806. Hislast illness, which produced symptoms of distressing debilityand sinking, began about the end of last year.

SCOTLAND.

(FROM OUR EDINBURGH CORRESPONDENT.)

SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY REFORM.—With the appointment ofMr. Inglis as Lord Advocate under the new administration,the hopes in favour of this measure may be said to be sub-stantially increased. llr. Inglis is known to be a warm ad-vocate of it, &nd this, together with the increased activity dis-played in the movement, render the reformers somewha.t

sanguine of ultimate success. The large meeting held sometime back at Edinburgh, and presided over by Lord Camphell,gave at once a conspicuous publicity to the movement. Sincethen Dr. Christison presided at another, and pointed out thedesirability of reform, especially in connexion with the medicalinterests of the Universities. It is to be regretted that anotherprofessor, remarkable for his prominence in the matter, with ill-judged northern zeal, should, in his speech at Glasgow, haveendeavoured to disparage the Universities of England.

MEDICO - CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY.—A number of excellentpapers have been recently read before this Society. Amongstthem may be mentioned a paper by Dr. Skae, " On MoralInsanity and Oiuomania," and a case of " Epithelial Cancercausing death by Pyasmia," by Dr. Haldane. At a recent

meeting, Professor Bennett introduced the remarkable case ofcongenital fissure of the sternum in the person of M. Groux.The professor stated that he had once met with a similar casein a woman who had died in the Infirmary. A preparation ofthis case he exhibited. In drawing attention to the subject,Professor Bennett alluded principally to the action of theheart and lungs, upon which an animated discussion followed,in which Professor Simpson, Mr. Lister, Mr. Edwards, and Dr.Struthers took part. M. Groux frequently made observationson his own case in the course of the evening.

PROFESSOR BENNETT’S CLASS.—For some years past, a seriesof excellent microscopical demonstrations have been given, onSaturdays, to the students of this class. Recently, in conse-quence of the class-room being requhed by another professor,