Sir Henry Halford has appeared before the public this week,
charged with inhumanity towards an old friend, Mr. Lockley, an eminent surgeon. According to the first edition of the circumstances, Sir Henry invited Mr. Lockley, who wits in ill health, to visit him at his country-house in Leicestsrshire. Both set out by the Birmingham Railroad ; but at Tring Mr. Lockley was seized with something like an apoplectic fit : Sir Henry bad him conveyed to the station, and hav- ing given directions for medical aid to be quickly sent for, proceeded on his journey : medical aid did not arrive for some hours : Mr. Lockley was removed to London, and died the same afternoon. Sir Henry Halford has corrected this account, in a letter to the Times. He says, that thinking a change of air would benefit Mr. Lockley, he in- vited him to his country house: that they went together to the terminus at Euston Square ; where Mr. Lockley "had a fall," but he assured Sir Henry that it was merely accidental : they took their places in the railway carriage ; and after passing Watford, Mr. Lockley " became sick, and soon afterwards fell asleep, breathed oppressively, and did not answer" Sir Henry's questions. Sir Henry took him to the parlour of the Inspector of the Tring station, "a most humane person," and gave directions that Mr. Dewsbury of Tring, or his assistant, should come immediately to Mr. Lockley's aid- " I gave directions what should be done; and requested further, that Mr. Dewsbury, when he had bled Mr. Lockley, would setal a message to London to apprize his family of the misfos tune, and to request Dr. Lockley, his son, to come down immediately. Having given these precise directions, I felt that I could not be of any further use at present, and therefore pursued may journey. Air. Dewsbury executed all my wishes within an hour; and Dr. Lockley arrived at ten o'clock the same evening. I should have been ready to return the next day; but after Mr. Dewsbury's first visit, Mr. Lockley had the daily assistance of friends from London ; and Dr. Watson gave his sanction to his patient's removal to London on the 6th ; which 1 learned by a letter from Mrs. Lockley the following day, informing me that he had accomplished the journey without inconvenience, and was thought better. If I could have administered, instead of directing only, the expmlieuts of our art to my friend, I should hare clone so; but feeling assured that I had provided Mr. Dewsbury's or his assist ant's immediate attention, I wont on ; and my conscience does not reproach me with the slightest neglect of ni.,04. ad, who died, not that evening, as has bee* erroneously stated, but on the 14th of October, heave days after his first seizure, in the bosom of his family in Half.m000 Stteet."
From Sir Henry lialford's own account, it would seem that he left his blend in a very alarming state, without any certainty that Mr. Dewsbury, or another medical man, would arrive in time to bleed him. No physician, we think, would be warranted in leaving estranger under such circumstances, unless professionally engaged elsewhere ; and Mr. Lockley was Sir Henry's " friend." It appears, too, that the superfine physician of the Court could not bleed a patient ; a surgeon was re- quired to perform that essential service. On this point we may quote the sensible remarks of a correspondent of the Times- " The President of the College of Physicians, then, has declared that he could not be of use in saving a fenow-creature from apoplectic death, because be was not able to afford, on the occasion, that aid of his art which offered tha only chance of instantaneous relief ! Does not such a declaration proclaim at at once, and with a force lamentably too impressive, the necessity of insisting on every medical practiti mer, no matter how denumivated, being qualified to affird, upon an emergency, every aid thist may he required to save human life, oral of aSelishino those ;:bsurd d:sthictions which gb xclude from the Col- b he of Phoseei,los Doctors 4.1101icias mho lorppeP to be also members of the ge ■1' Shryeons,—distinction4 by no one more strenuously insisted upon before the Parliamentary Medivid Committee i1 IS:34, than by the very indict. thud who has nowt., roe ti„,fda/ opats of his ignoravee cif practical surgery? " In order that the pub.ic may affix a proper value to Sir Henry Halford's defenee of his conduct contaki.d in your journal, they might to consider well the anomalous state of the in -h :1 profession in this country, as detailed in the Parliamentary volumes of the Cei:imittee alluded to, or in the oration recently published by the British Association, which has taken the lead in endeavouring to obtain wholesente medical refus Ins, by making running com- ments upon and cants astiag one part with another of the contents of those ea- t! aordinary volumes.'
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