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DR. JOHNSON’SQUARTERLY JOURNAL

AND

THE LANCET.

We understand that Dr. JOHN-

SON, the Editor of the Quar-terly .1o,urnal, has: been for threemonths employed in concoctingan article-. against The Lancet,on the -inexpediency of givingpublicity to lectures, and hospitalcases, -and that he has been in

the habit’of inflicting portionsof the manuscript on his friends

after dinner; reading them, nodoubt, with innnite satisfaction

to himself, but, we fear, some-what to the discomfiture of his

guests. We are ready for this

feeble gentleman, and as soon

as the parturient mountain hasproduced,its, mouse, The Lan-eet shall be applied. Nemo im-

pune lacessit is our motto, and

if we hasten the death of Dr.JOHNSON’S Review, let him re-’,collect that he was the first to

assail The Lancet. In order-, to-prepare the way for this. .,discus-sion, we beg* leave to call the

attention of our readers to the

following’ observations in thePreface to the second volume ofthis publication.

One of the most novel and interest.ing features of T7tc Lancet, is the pub-lication of Sketches of the Lectures

’delivered by the distittgulshed Pro-fessor at St, Thomas’s Hospital. Wehave already had occasion to call theattention ’of our Readers to- some ob-servations which were made on thisportion of our publication. in‘ Dr. John-

son’s Quarterly Review. The Review-er’s strictures on the immorality ofgiving publicity to Medical Lectures,hardly required to be answered withgravity; and we really think thatwhen he- comes to reflect somewhatmore seriously,on the subject, he wilbe a little’ ashamed of his own obser-vations. The expediency of ’givingReports of Public Medical Lectures,rests on the same general grounds asthat of publishing reports of Parlia-mentary fr Judicial Proceedings. Thequestion,as it regards Judicial Proceed-ings, has recently’been argued, witli

great ability, both in the English andFrench journals. Writers of all partiesare agreed as to. the beneficial eftects ofunrestrained publicity ; an opiqionwhich has been sanctioned by a Committee of the House of Commons, and op-posed by none, but a few persons of thesame intellectual size as- the writer inDr. Johnson’s Review, whpse minds,naturally feeble, have been still furthercramped and debilitated by. the tram.mels of professional sophistry. If theexnediencv of reporting Parliamentaryand Judicial Proceedings be admitted,because those proceedings affect ’theliberties and property of the subject,on what ground can it be pretendedthat a similar publicity ought not to begiven to Public Medical Lectures, andPublic Medical Transactions of everydescription, which affect the still moreimportant interests of the lives ’andhealth of the people ? The immediatebenefits arising, from such a publica-tion are the correction of errors, the

suggestion of improvements, and’an.increased degree of vigilance and ac.tivity among all branches of the Pro-fession. when they know that .theirproceedings are constantly under theeye of the public, and that they willbe amenable to public opinion. Wehave but one observation to add withrespect to the accuracy of our Reportsor Sketches of the-Lectures-deliverectat St. Thomas’s Hospital. Like theReports of Parliamentary and JudicialProceedings, they are unauthorised,and the Learned Professor cannottherefore be considered as pledged byany observations or opinions which are

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believed to have fallen from him. Wepledge ourselves, however, to givethem as accurately as the equally un-authorised Reports of ParliamentarySpeeches; and we have, in fact, madesuch arrangements for this departmentof The Lancet, as are calculated toensure a similar degree of fidelity.

AMPUTATION AT THE HIP-JOINT, AS PERFORMED AT

EDINBURGH.

in number six of the presentvolume of THE- LANCET, we

published an account of the hip-joint amputation, as lately per-formed at Edinbtirgh; we copiedthe case -from our highly respect-able contemporary, the Edin-

burgh Medical and SurgicalJournal. The statement it ap-

pears: was transmitted to the

editor by the operator himselfso that in every point of viewit is a fair subject for comment.Our attention has been particu-larly called to this ,operation, inconsequence of its having beenalluded to by the northern-jour-nals, for the purpose-of castinga shade upon the splendour ofLondon surgery; and in doingthis our brethren of the North,sarcastically compared the timeoccupied by Mr. SYMES to thatoccupied by Sir A. , COOPER,when he recently performedasimilar operation at Guy1s Hos-pital. As regards time the dif-ference is unquestionably very

’ great, Sir A. C. having requiredtwenty minutes to remove the

limb, whereas Mr. SYMES, ac-

cording’ td his own account, wascontented with ONE minute.-But is this contrast to be sign-i-ficantly pointed at, for the pur-

pose of throwing’ scandal uponthe operation, of Sir ASTLEY?Can it, we ask, with any pro-priety be so referred to ? De-

cidedly not-on the contrarywe consider that Mr. SYMES’S

operation was performed, to saythe least of’ it, most unskilfully.For an account of the able andscientific manner in which Sir

ASTLEY’S was executed, we begto refer our. readers to No. 4 ofthis volume. ’ .’

. Let us now look for a moment

at the history of -Mr. SYMES’Soperation, after having describ-ed the direction in which thefirst incisions had been made,he thus continues:—

" Mr. LISTON holding- asidethe flaps, I made a single cutwith my long knife upon thehead of the bone, which startedwith a loud report from itssocket, as soon as abductionwas performed ; finally, I passedthe knife round the edge of thebone, cut the triangular and re-maining portion of capsularligament ; and thus completedthe operation, which certainlydid not occupy, at the most,more than a minute.