Inquiry respecting Mr. Charles Whitlaw's practice in scrofula and cancer : and the propriety of instituting an asylum, under his care, for these complaints, &c. / by A. Rennie.

  • Rennie, A.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inquiry respecting Mr. Charles Whitlaw's practice in scrofula and cancer : and the propriety of instituting an asylum, under his care, for these complaints, &c. / by A. Rennie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    11/40 (page 10)
    SCROFULA AND CANCER. Public Meeting- for establishing an Asylum for tJie Cure of Scrofula and Cancer^ under the Care of Mr, Whitlaw, held at the City of London ^avern, on Thursday, the Wth of July; Sir Claudius Stephen Hunter, Bart, in the Cliair. The Chairman opened the business by explaining the object of the meeting, ' The establishment of an Asylum for the reception and cure of Scrofula and Cancer.' It was necessary that he should explain the motives which induced him to accept the situation in which he was placed. Connected as he was, by charter, with four of the most extensive hospitals in the kingdom, he wished it clearly to be understood that he meant no sort of disrespect to those noble in- stitutions in supporting a new Asylum, for the restoration of those miserable objects who were dismissed from them as incurable. Mr. MiTFORD read a Report which stated that several gentle- men had organized themselves into a Committee, of which he was chairman, and that they had examined the patients from week to week, under Mr. Whitlaw's care, from Feb. 1821, to the present period, of whom a great number had been entirely cured, and the rest had ex- perienced essential and permanent relief. So convinced were they of the efficacy of his system of treatment, and of the value of his disco- veries to the healing art, that they had called this public meeting for the purpose of estabhshing an Asylum, in which the benefits of them might be extended lo a larger portion of the poor and suffering part of the community, and the knowledge of them to mankind in general, and to the medical profession in particular. A series of resolutions, copied from the rules and regulations of similar estabUshments, were read, which had been passed at a public meeting held for the same purpose at Freemasons' Tavern, on the 28th of February last. In concluding the Report, the Committee earnestly entreated the charitable attention of the meeting to those afHicted objects, whose diseases often made their existence miserable, and rendered them loathsome to their friends and a burden to society. The Hon. and Rev. Anchitel Grey moved that the Report be received and adopted, and expressed an anxious wish for the esta- blishment of the proposed Asylum. Mr. Pbter Moore, M. P. in seconding the motion, passed a high eulog.ium upon the chairman for his honourable and praiseworthy conduct, in nobly standing forward in the cause of charity and truth. He alluded to the history of Mr. Whitlaw's life, and to the great im- portance of his discoveries to mankind. He could relate numberless instances of the success attending the administration of his remedies, which were prepared solely from vegetables, and therefore innocent in their nature; but he did not wish the meeting to be convinced by his testimony, or that of any other witnesses, but he requested that every individual would come, see, and judge for himself. Mr. Rennie, a surgeon, said, that the Report appeared to hipi