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                A




         REVIEW



               OF THE




MEMORIAL OF DOCTOR JOHN BELL,



               TO THE



          TRUSTEES



               OF THB




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             / 87 *c

          PHILADELPHIA:
      B. MIFFLIN, PRINTER, 74 WALNUT STREET.
              1850. 
w 
A   REVIEW.
   Men of moderate  abilities, or having a particular kind of talent, if
 possessed of  "a  deplorable egotism  of  character," fancy themselves
 destined by nature for greatness.   They indulge in  the most  extrava-
 gant pretensions,  and exhibit,  on the stage of science, the fantastic
 pranks of a Malvolio of comedy.
   In their great conceit they undertake different departments of know-
 ledge, any one of  which is sufficient to task the  highest order of intel-
 lect.  They claim offices or stations of emolument or honor as due to
 their superior merits.   A denial of their extraordinary abilities, and a
 resistance of  their demands, are resented  as personal grievances  and
 affronts; are attributed " to a spirit of clique," to envy of their merits, " to
 professional rivalry," and other motives, the mere coinage of their brains.
   When disappointed in their expectations, the welkin rings with their
 complaints.   The  truth cannot  penetrate  the  envelope  of  their self-
 esteem.  " The fault is not within themselves, or in their stars," but is
 the work " of secret ambush and  unfair designs."  They vituperate and
 malign whoever is supposed to have stood in their way,  or has thwarted
 their schemes.
   In the intemperance of their passion, they are inconsistent and ridicu-
 lous.  The men whom they courted and  flattered while they expected
 favors from them, are insulted;  those whom they sought to associate
with, but who declined the honor, are reviled as unfit companions;  and
the institution they would  have given the  apple of the  eye  to have
entered, when its doors are closed on  them, is slandered  as in decrepi-
tude and decay. 
4
   So long as these outbursts of wounded vanity and offended self-esteem
 do not break through the bounds of propriety, they may be borne with,
 and  passed  by unnoticed.   Querulousness and  invectives extorted by
 disappointed  hopes are evidences of suffering;  and though the moral
 sensibility they display cannot command respect, charity teaches to for-
 give  and  forget.
   But  when all sense of self-respect and decency is discarded, and the
 malignancy of a cynical temper and ignoble nature seeks its revenge in
 insults, libels, falsification and slanders, the propriety of a passive quiet-
 ism is  questionable.   Forbearance misunderstood encourages offences.
 It may become a duty, forced on those  thus assailed, to justify them-
 selves by a calm and truthful statement of the facts and motives  that
 governed  them.
   The preceding remarks have been elicited by the recent  proceedings
 of Dr. John Bell, on which they are a commentary, while  his conduct
 is an exemplification of their correctness.
   The resignation of Professor Chapman led to the vacancy of the chair
 of Materia Medica, by the transferrence of Professor Wood  to the chair
 of the  Theory  and  Practice,—Dr. Bell was prepared to  take either
 chair.  He was disappointed of both.
   No candid person can suppose that the Trustees of the University of
 Pennsylvania were actuated by any other motive, in the transfer of
 Dr. Wood, than that  of promoting  the  best interests of the Medical
 School.  There appeared to be a general  acquiescence in the propriety
 of the selection, for there was no open opposition to the election of Dr.
 Wood.  Dr. Bell would have been a rival and contested the chair, had
 he not seen the hopelessness of the attempt.  He was not the less boast-
 ful of his  pretensions to the chair, and  free in  his intimations of his
 high  qualifications for this branch  of medical  instruction.   Hejiow
 accuses the Board  of Trustees, in this instance, of a direliction of their
duty in being mere passive agents registering the edicts of the Medical
Faculty, and of other highly culpable conduct.   To  show that he has
some  smattering of logic, he falsely states the grounds of the selection
of Dr. Wood by the Trustees, that he may talk of propositions, sequent*
and antecedents. 
5
  Dr. Wood was not elected to the chair of the Theory and Practice of
Medicine because he had distinguished himself as a teacher and lecturer
in the chair of Materia Mcdica.   Dr. Wood had created a reputation as
a practitioner and teacher of the Practice of Medicine.   He has been
engaged many years in the Practice.   He is an  attending physician to
the Pennsylvania Hospital, where  he has for  several winters given
courses of clinical instruction to large classes, with distinguished success.
He has published the most extensive and  best work on the Practice of
Medicine, in its present state, that has been produced by an American
author.  Dr. Wood, moreover, has an enviable reputation as a scholar,
writer  and  lecturer.  He is indefatigable in  industry and  application,
and liberal in procuring every means for the illustration of his course,
making it demonstrative as well  as  didactic.  These are the grounds,
full and sufficient, that governed the Trustees in  the choice of Dr. Wood
for the chair of the  Theory and Practice, and that amply justify it.
They are well known to Dr. Bell, but the truth would not answer bis
object of calumnious imputation.
   For  the chair of  Materia Medica  Dr. Bell became an applicant, and
canvassed for it most ardently, directly and indirectly, by personal solici-
tations and the intercessions of friends.   He proved for the second time
an unsuccessful  candidate.*  It is not surprising that he should feel
vexed and disappointed, but it is not a justification for seeking  revenge
" per fas  et nefas."
   In pursuing this end  he has addressed a printed memorial to the
Trustees of the University of  Pennsylvania.  Viewing this step in the
most favorable light, it can only be  regarded  as intrusive and imperti-
nent.   The  plea he  puts forth  as an excuse  is curious and highly
characteristic.
   In the " palmy days of the University he had listened to the lessons
of a Wistar, a Physic, a Chapman and a Rush, through the readings of
his gifted son," which readings, after struggling through three years,
ceased  to attract a class.   There were other Professors in  the school-
were their lessons not worthy of being listened to, though amongst them
* For the chair of the Institutes iu lsr.o 
6
were " the tasteful prelections  of James;" or were  they beneath his
notice, and unworthy of regard ?
  The opportunity to listen to those eminent men  was certainly not
exclusively enjoyed by Dr.  Bell.  Thousands of others possessed the
same privilege.  The Trustees would find  the office no sinecure, if  all
who have listened  to the  lessons of those teachers should arrogate from
it the right to inundate them with memorials.
  The second member of this plea is truly rich, and a ludicrous speci-
men of inflated conceit.   " On his return from foreign travel and study
he seized on every suitable occasion to impress on the minds of the Pro-
fessors the propriety of an increase  in  the number of branches to  be
taught, and of an extension  of the lecture term."
  The newly-fledged doctor, just returned " from foreign  travel," conde-
scendingly  constituted himself  the guardian of the University,  took  it
under his patronizing care, offered his " friendly criticism," and held a
" watchful regard over its prosperity."
  On these ridiculous premises he assumes a right  to interfere in the
concerns of the University, and to lecture the Trustees  on its manage-
ment.  But from  the tenor of what he calls a memorial, it is evident
he makes this flimsy pretext the occasion to  insult the Board of Trustees,
to libel the Faculty, and  to slander and falsify the state of the school.
  Doctor Bell insults the Board of Trustees of the  University in repre-
senting them as mere tools of the Medical Faculty,  of remissness in the
government of the institution under their charge, and of being influenced
by unworthy motives.
  In Philadelphia, where the parties and circumstances are known, the
assertions of Dr. Bell are of no moment—at a distance they might obtain
some credence.  The Board of Trustees is composed of gentlemen well
known as the most distinguished of our citizens for social  position, moral
worth, and intellectual eminence,  It will not be asserted that they are
faultless.  Like other men, prejudices,  friendships, religious and politi-
cal  influences may be felt by them.   It is  believed, however, that few
bodies can be more relied on for correct intentions and independence  of
action.
  The Medical Faculty  are more directly and deeply interested in the 
7
filling of vacant chairs than any others.   A judicious appointment may
make, a bad one mar, their  fortunes and  prosperity, and those of the
school.  Self-interest, a keen sharpener of the perceptions of most men,
renders the Faculty the best judges of the qualifications of candidates.
Their opinions are not consulted, and cannot be expressed as a Faculty.
Such a proceeding is opposed to the organization of the University.  As
a matter of course, therefore, the Professors, when conscious their inte-
rests are endangered, feel they have aright to call on individual Trustees
and express their opinions.   It is absurd to suppose the Medical Faculty
would  oppose a candidate whose known  qualifications  would advance
their own interests,  and the reputation of the school.   It  is  no more
than reasonable to believe that the unanimous opposition to a candidate
must be founded on solid  grounds; and it is no more than reasonable
and proper that the Trustees should listen to the opinions of the mem-
bers of the Faculty, if openly and fairly stated; and if found, on inquiry,
to be correct and valid, give weight to and be influenced by them.   In-
deed, it could not but be looked on as exceedingly disgracious were the
Trustees to force on the Faculty an associate to whom they were unani-
mously opposed, without very strong evidence that the opposition was
unjust and unfounded.
   The ground of opposition to Dr. Bell was not kept a secret; it was
not whispered in private; it exhibited no evidence of " ambush or unfair
design;" it had no foundation " in personal feeling or rivalry."  These
insinuations are salves to fretted self-love,—as such let  them pass, and
Dr.  Bell derive all the consolation they can give him.
  The  objection of the  Faculty was openly avowed and limited to a
single fact.   That fact was true or it was false.  If not true it could
have readily been refuted.  The witnesses were residents of the  city,
the daily associates  of the Trustees.  If  not true, the Faculty would
have been promptly convicted of misrepresentation, and overwhelmed
with obloquy and defeat.
  The statement of the Faculty was simply this, that whatever might
be the qualifications of Dr. Bell in other respects, yet he unfortunately
had not the power to interest an audience, or to  induce a class to follow 
8
 him.   This opinion was formed  from observation and  an experience of
 many years.
   Dr. Bell was a lecturer for about ten years in the Philadelphia Medical
 Institute.   His subjects were  at first the Institutes  of Medicine, and
 afterwards Materia Medica.  Alterations were made in the management
 of the association, in  order  to favor  Dr. Bell,  and to place him, at  a
 sacrifice  to  his associates, on a pecuniary footing with themselves.  At
 last those who had the most  work to do  found the compensation so tri-
 fling, that the organization of the institution was dissolved.  During the
 whole period, Dr.  Bell was attended by a mere fraction of the class, the
 majority, though paying, refusing to  avail themselves of his  lectures.
 His unpopularity as a lecturer is  of common notoriety.
  As a speaker, Dr, Bell is  not  more happy.  He belongs to various
 societies.   He is not backward;  he occupies the floor on all questions,
 trifling or  grave.   His calibre and  force  are known  to numbers.  It
 would have  been an easy matter to have refuted  a false aspersion.   The
 evidence  was at his command.  The profession at large were acquainted
 with  the opposition of the Faculty to Dr. Bell, and the ground of it.
 They would not silently have acquiesced in an untruth and an injustice.^
  Dr. Bell has not attempted to repel  the  statement, or refute the dis-
 qualifying  fact  averred  by the Faculty.  He has endeavored to make
 out a case of injustice and collusion on the part of the Trustees and the
 Faculty.   The insufficiency and fallacy of  his plea have  been shown.
 He adduces no evidence; he confines  himself to  insinuations, without
 a shadow of foundation, in order  to insult and abuse.
  The libellous delineation  of the  Faculty  scarcely deserves notice.
 Dr. Bell  is  a poor artist; he fails in this as in most of what he has
undertaken.   His  sketches are mere  daubings.  From vulgarity and
 coarseness they have not the  spirit of caricature.  It is  the fate of Dr.
Bell  always  to mistake  his  genius.   He  believes himself a  satirist;
 nature has made him a cynic.
  If the  lectures of the Faculty have been" truthfully characterised, their
 effect must have been as repulsive to the students as were the lectures
 of Dr Bell in the Medical Institute.   Yet with all his eagerness to dis- 
9
 parage, he has not dared to say that they have lectured like himself—
 to empty benches ; that the classes, as to numbers greater than in " the
 palmy days," year after year have not crowded the lecture rooms; that
 the  students have not been more  thoroughly and fully taught in  the
 branches he decries than they ever were before in the University.  Nor
 will he dare to say that the zeal and ardor for which  the students of the
 University have been noted  in  the pursuit of their studies, have not
 been characteristic of them for the last ten years.
   Dr. Bell, by descending from the looseness of rhetorical phraseology,
 and making specific objections, enables us to understand what he regards
 as  the perfection of teaching.    Modern  science, becoming positive,
 places the highest value on truth of facts, precision of  observation, and
 soundness of practical experience.   They are, for the most part, incom-
 patible with the arts of rhetoric and ornamental style.   The plainest,
 simplest and most direct method of expression can best convey them to
 the  mind.  The acquisition of knowledge for practical purposes is  the
 object that attracts students  to a school.   The revelations of scientific
 truth, and facts derived from a direct observation of nature by a reliable
 authority, are more intensely interesting, and  more  exciting to their
 zeal and ardor, than all the blazonry of  language and  the meretricious
 arts of oratory.
   Dr. Bell  is ignorant  of this.   Students,  according to him, are to be
 cheered  on by "flowers of literature, amused  by jests from Hamlet,"
 (why not from  Joe Miller,  more  fun  in  it?) by scraps of "poetry
 snatched  from Childe Harold," (why not  from Don  Juan, far more
 spicy and redolent ?) or tit bits of philosophy from Paley.  These, with
 " sprinklings of humane letters,"  are his receipe for compounding lec-
 tures to instruct students  in  the serious and solemn truths  of medical
 science.   These  phrases are not  misapplied; for on  the truth or false-
 hood, the accuracy or  looseness of the teaching of lecturers,  and of  the
 facts and principles of medicine,  depend  the suffering,  the life and
 happiness of thousands.   Is it because  the rhetorical  Dr. Eell treated
his students with such vapid trash they left him to empty benches, while
the dull Professors who cared  little for  the ornamental, but cultivated
the truthful,  have been followed by crowds ? 
10
  In holding up the example of Dr. Gregory, Dr. Bell shows an entire
misapprehension of  the true  ends of teaching.  He informs us " the
learned author of the Conspectus Medicinw displayed more anxiety for its
pure latinity than for its doctrinal accuracy."
  If this be true the course of Dr. Gregory was most reprehensible,
even criminal.  He preferred to inculcate error, to hazard  misdirection
in the treatment of diseases, to teach the false for the true, rather than
write a defective style.
  The approval of so serious a dereliction of duty exhibits the spirit of
a pedagogue, not  the principles of a physician  or philosopher.  It is
well for the University and its  pupils that they have been saved from
such " a sprinkling of humane letters."
  Dr. Bell is quite wroth in his critical denunciations of the Professor
of the Institutes.   He is here on his own ground.  He was for some
six  or eight years a lecturer on the same subject, and has always enter-
tained  pretensions  to occupy the chair.  He  appears  in full panoply,
and  puts  forth all his strength.   Whether the Professor or the critic
excels  in  the " facundia oris," may be a nice  point to decide.   What-
ever the critic may think, it is most certain others have been unable to
discover this faculty in him.   As  to the " lucidus  ordo," a demurrer
may be entered as  to his capacity to form a judgment.  Dr. Bell shows
that he is unacquainted with  the true character of the  Institutes or
" Philosophy of Medicine."   He  knows not  that  they have  become
positive and demonstrative.  He believes they are to be investigated by
" dialectics."  This was so in times past and " the palmy days." They
were not  then a positive science,  or a philosophy, but mere  cobweb
dialectics, spun in  dusty closets  from the subtleties of the brain,  fitted
only to catch light-winged insects.  Until  Dr.  Bell proved  to the con-
trary, it was not believed that any one would, at this  day, be entangled
in such flimsy texture.
  Dr.  Bell exists but does not live  in the present time; his existence is
in the past.  He is a caput mortuum of antiquated notions, from which
all  spirit has evaporated and life  departed, laboriously gathered from
books.  He knows not nature; he  does not understand her language or
comprehend  her signs; to him they are Egyptian  hieroglyphics; he 
11
 neither studies nor interrogates her; he does not look to her for know-
 ledge.   What is drawn fresh from her stores, and he cannot find in his
 intellectual recipient, dimly lighted by the flickering torch  of the past,
 he rejects as dark and wanting order.  The light of modern science has
 not illuminated his mind, and his own darkness he blames on others.
   Dr. Bell, in presenting his notions of lectures on the Institutes, ex-
 hibits a deplorable incapacity of adaptability to circumstances.  He can
 originate nothing.   He is helplessly dependent on books.   He must
 resort to G-aubius and Boerhaave to learn what are the Institutes.  His
 authorities, with the exception of a few positive facts, are extinct. Their
 dialectics produced nothing that belongs to science; they occupy a para-
 graph in its  history.  Dr. Bell does  not  know the distinction.  The
 past is with  him always  the  present.  The works of Allison  and Wil-
 liams  are not intended  or calculated  for medical  students.   They are
 addressed to practitioners, to  those whose  medical education is com-
 pleted.   They are filled with speculations that have not been verified.
 Their method cannot  be made applicable to the peculiar circumstances
 of American schools and American students.  Our critic does not com-
 prehend the difference;  it is the source of his blunders.
   Dr. Bell parades his school-boy knowledge of  the  Institutes, what
 every  physician is familiar with, in  enumerating and defining three of
 its divisions, Physiology,  Pathology, and Hygiene,  "the true founda-
 tion of medicine."   He omits Therapeutics, yet this department is as
 truly a part of  the Institutes as Pathology and Hygiene.  Can medi-
 cine, without Therapeutics, " be any other than empiricism and random
 conjecture ?"
   The Institutes of medicine do not form a course of medical  instruction
in any of the European medical schools of the continent, and, with the
exception of the Edinburg, in no medical school of Great Britain.  The
separate  divisions of the Institutes are  distinct courses of special chairs.
On the continent these courses are of ten months'  duration; the whole
period of attendance, five  years.  Andral, of the Paris University, the
Professor of Pathology, does not complete his .course on  that  one divi-
sion under two courses;  that  is, his course on Pathology continues for
twenty months.   The course of lectures on  the Institutes in the Uni- 
12
versity of Pennsylvania is limited to nineteen weeks, and must be con-
densed in about sixty lectures.   Dr. Bell, knowing these  facts, is so ill
informed  on the extent and nature of the investigations embraced in
the separate divisions of the Institutes, that he believes they can be
comprised in the narrow limits of the American courses.   Such a course
of lectures would  be a mere jumble of scraps, fragments and baseless
dialectics, utterly worthless.  If Dr. Bell  is not too ignorant to make
so gross a mistake, then is he so shameless as to revile the incumbent
of the chair of the Institutes for not blunderingly attempting an impos-
sibility.   He may choose  either horn of the dilemma,
   From  the definitions he  has given of Physiology, Pathology and
Hygiene, it may well be suspected he has impaled himself on the first.
Those definitions might  have been tolerated fifty years past: a student
of a year's course of lectures would be ashamed of them now.  " Physi-
ology is not the study of man in the discharge of his healthy functions,"
it embraces a far wider range of investigation : nor is Pathology " the
study of these (that is,  the healthy  functions,) when diseased."   This
definition  is as shallow as that  of Physiology, and  displays a sad want
of knowledge of the advances made in this department of medical sci-
ence.   The definition of Hygiene is nearly as loose; it appears to include
Therapeutics.   They are beneath critical notice.
   The medical schools generally of the United  States have a chair with
the title of Institutes.  They copy  the University of Pennsylvania in
this respect, yet the courses, with  few, if any exceptions,  consist of
pure Physiology.   It will be conceded by every intelligent person in
the least acquainted with  the subject, that the Institutes of Medicine,
which  embrace  the  theoretical principles of every department of medi-
cine, cannot be given in full detail in a single course of lectures.
   Physiology is the foundation not  only of the Institutes, but of the
whole science of medicine.  It is indispensable  in the instruction of the
student.    Pathology, Therapeutics,  and Hygiene must wait  on the
advances  of Physiology  for their  improvement.   Without previous
instruction in Physiology, they cannot be made intelligible.  Physiology
presents different aspects,  and possesses varied relations and connexions.
In medical schools it should be taught in its relation and connection 
13
with Pathology, Therapeutics  and Hygiene—in other words, with  the
Institutes.
  This course, as far as it is practicable, has been  pursued in the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. From the commencement  to the termination of
the lectures, the direct relation of every Physiological principle and fact
with the allied departments, are demonstrated.  In this mode the general
principles of Pathology, Therapeutics and Hygiene, that is, of the Insti-
tutes, are brought before the students. They are initiated, as far as our sci-
ence admits of its being done, in the processes of investigation.  They
are taught to analyze every phenomenon of the organism, to assign each
to its special category, to determine the laws that develope and  control
it,  and  to understand  its  relation to  Pathology,  Therapeutics and
Hygiene.
  Dr.  Bell supposes the  Institutes of  Medicine include the details of
each  of its subdivisions.   This is a most  mistaken notion.   No one
acquainted with the vast accumulation of materials in these departments
could  fall into this error.  The  Institutes, as  the name implies,  are
confined to general principles, to the fundamental theories of  medical
science, drawn not from dialectic rhetoric, but from facts ascertained by
positive observation, by experiment, and rigid induction.
  For the  details  of Pathology,  Therapeutics  and Hygiene,  special
lectures are required, and works written expressly for their investigation
must be consulted.
  The barrenness of Dr. Bell's conception of a course  of Physiology, at
this day, cannot  but excite "our special wonder." He rejects from it
microscopic anatomy, histology, and, of  course, morphology, its richest
and most fruitful portions in application  to the Institutes.  He sneer-
ingly terms " transcendental" the investigations into the laws of those
mysterious, but not  the less real forces, that give a specific direction to
chemical  actions, that produce specific organic materials for structure,
that create from formless substance organic  forms, tissues, organs or
instruments  of life—actions and  a perfected  organism.  They are, in
truth,  transcendental;  that is, they  form  super-eminent knowledge.
They carry our mental perceptions beyond matter, and behind pheno- 
14
mena.   They demonstrate the ever-acting agency and directing wisdom
of G-od, through the medium of special laws, in the greatest as in the
least of his Works.  These investigations,  (it may be that they are pecu-
liar to the course of the University, on which he casts a slur,) are vindi-
cated in the late lectures of Professor Owen and Paget, two of the most
illustrious of the physiologists and medical philosophers of Great Britain,
who have of late  entered  on the same line of research with so much
ability.*
  The same  looseness of  ideas, incapableness as a teacher, and superfi-
cial knowledge, are displayed when he lays down  the  subjects for the
instruction of the chemical chair.
  Medical students are for the most  part  wholly ignorant of the ele-
ments  of chemistry,  yet he would have them initiated in the  most
abstruse, difficult, and even unknown departments of organic chemistry.
They are to be taught " the changes to which the  living  body is sub-
jected  in the various  states  of  health and disease during respiration,
digestion, circulation and nutrition,  as well  as the processes of secretion
and calorification."
  These are  not subjects of instruction,  they are matters of investiga-
tion, as yet hidden, unknown, and  not likely to be  elucidated  in  the
next half century.
  A similar  confusion of  thought exists  when  he undertakes to point
out to the Professor of Materia Medica and Pharmacy, the Therapeutics,
he should introduce into his course.  " It  is not  enough to say that such
an article cures a disease, without we add the precise  circumstances of
general and local derangement to which it  is applicable, and the reme-
dial measures that ought to precede as well as follow its administration."
Dr. Bell supposes the above to be " general principles of Therapeutics."
A candidate  for a diploma might incur the  risk of losing it by such a
mistake.  In this  quotation are comprised special Pathology and special
Therapeutics, or the Practice of Medicine.   Here, as in the preceding

  * On Parthenogenis, by Professor Owen; Lectures on the Processes of Repair and Reproduction
after Injuries, by Dr. Paget. 
15
instances, there is no discrimination; subjects entirely distinct are con-
founded together.
  Dr. Bell  has exposed, in his animadversions  on these subjects, his
strength and his knowledge.   The  feebleness and poverty exhibited
cannot fail  to excite surprise and even regret.  It is obvious he would
have struck with sterility the course confided to his charge.   It  is the
most  complete justification  of the opposition  made  by  the Medical
Faculty to his election, and  of the vote of the Trustees that excluded
him from the University.
  Dr. Bell  forgets consistency in his slanders of the  University.  He
represents it, using Scriptural  allusion, like an old  garment, not worth
the piecing.   Yet it was  the ambition of the Doctor  to  be the patch
that was to  renovate and make  it whole.  A patch, at best, is but a
botch, and this was the very ground of opposition to  Dr. Bell.  The
school has had a  lucky escape.   He would have proved not only an old
patch, but a cross patch.
  Dr. Bell, in his indignation, falls under his own censure—" Vain is
the attempt  to rejuvenate an old  and worn out body;  such a result  is
one of the promises of empirical pretenders, but it can only find credence
among the ignorant  and credulous."  What is Dr. Bell, then,  but an
" empirical pretender ?"  He offered himself for this " vain  attempt,"
and promised this  great  result; but, unlike most " empirical pretend-
ers," he did not find the " ignorant and credulous" to give him credence.
  Instead of venting his spleen, if there  be truth in his statement, he
should rejoice in  having escaped a calamity.  Who would desire to enter
a falling building?  Rats run from, not to, the tottering edifice.
  On what grounds does Dr. Bell hazard this slander of the University ?
He  adduces no evidence, for he has none.  Dr. Bell never deals in facts;
" dialectics"  are  his  forte.   Certainly from no falling off in the num-
bers, intelligence or respectability of the classes  and  graduates.  For
the last  six years, in  these respects, the University  has never known
more " palmy days."  The  following table will  show the disregard of
Dr. Bell as to facts.  A thimble-full of facts is worth a painted ship-
load of dialectics and assertion. 
16
  List of 3Iatriculants and Graduates of the University of Pennsylvania
from the years 1845 and 1850, inclusive, viz.:
Matriculants.	, 1845, 447,	Graduates	, 1845, 160.
do.	1846, 4G4,	do.	1846, 171.
do.	1847, 413,	do-	1847, 162.
do.	1848, 508,	do.	1848, 174.
do.	1849, 499,	do.	1849, 191.
do.	1850, 439,	do.	1850, 176.
   Average of Matriculants for the last six years, 461.
   Average of Graduates for the last six years, 170.

   In the last session the unfortunate breaking down of Professor Chap-
man, obvious at the opening of the lectures, was too clear an indication
that in his important branch the instruction of that course would neces-
sarily prove defective.  The  effect was to  diminish the class a small
number below the average of the preceding  six  years, though it was
above the average of the last twenty years.
   It is characteristic of the self-conceited to extol  themselves and  to
depreciate others, and  of the shallow special pleader to distort and ex-
aggerate some trifling  circumstance to obtain a subject of declamatory
abuse.   Dr. Bell furnishes the example.
   One of the Faculty suggested as a desirable measure, calculated  to
advance the interests of the school, the transfer of the Professor of the
Institutes to the chair  of Materia Medica, connecting with it Therapeu-
tics; and  the introduction, could it  be effected,  of  Dr. Leidy into the
chair of the Institutes.  This proposition never became a  Faculty ques-
tion.   In  the course of a few days the subject was dropped.
   The reason assigned by Dr. Bell  for  the abandoning of this design,
like so many of  his statements,  is entirely gratuitous.  The Professor
of the Institutes, anxious  to  promote the  interests  of his  friend  Dr.
Leidy, inclined for some days  to favor the proposal.   On reflection  it
was declined  for two reasons :  1st, that it would  be doing injustice to
himself, just as he had succeeded, by an analysis and classification of the
phenomena of living beings, in  simplifying Physiology and  connecting 
                                  17
 it with the Institutes, to change  his branch;  and 2d, that his period of
 life, infirm constitution and deficient strength, would expose him to great
 risks in undertaking the labor of a new course of instruction.
    This circumstance  has been represented by Dr. Bell in a false light,
 and then seized on for the purpose of underrating Dr. Leidy, and vent-
 ing his malice on the Faculty.   For the second  time Dr. Leidy has
 been attacked by Dr. Bell, envious of his rising reputation and spread-
 ing fame.
    Dr.  Bell  has no acquaintance with Dr. Leidy.  He has never con-
 versed with  him.  He has no means of judging of the extent of his
 acquirements.   He is compelled to concede to him, though  grudgingly,
 " attainments substantial and praiseworthy," but asserts they are not
 sufficiently extensive for a lecturer on the Institutes.
    It is not necessary to defend Dr. Leidy here.  His attainments far
 surpass Dr. Bell's comprehension.   Had he  known, or were he able to
 appreciate Dr. Leidy, he never would have ventured the  assertion and
 the untruth that it was thought either expedient or proper " to curtail
 the Institutes of medicine in order to adapt it to his capacity."
   Dr. Leidy's appreciation of the Institutes of Medicine is far more just
 than Dr. Bell's, the absurdity of which has been exposed.   Dr. Leidy's
 knowledge is not a stagnant pool filled by the  drainings of surrounding
 rills.   In him it is a living  spring, gushing  forth vigorous and  pure.
 He has already a European reputation, and is the only American who
 has been  quoted by English and  German physiologists as an original
 observer and authority on their branch.
   The attack levelled  at the Professors on  this point is  the last  that
 will be noticed.  It is a fair specimen of  Dr. Bell's  dialectics, style,
 " lucidus ordo," and honesty.
   " In what terms, (says Dr. Bell,) can the truthful student of his pro-
fession, who  is  accustomed to survey it in its  grandeur, scientific bear-
ings and beautiful and harmonious  proportions, speak of the attempt of
those who would tear away some of its most useful and ornamental parts
to  gratify the caprices of the hour ?"
  Notwithstanding the "lucidus ordo" of Dr. Bell, it is no easy task to
comprehend this dialectic fustian.   The profession  of medicine is confined 
18
to the practice of the art, and consists in conscientiously administering to
the sick, to the strict observance of general and professional ethics, and
to the due  collection of  fees honestly charged.   What  grand scientific
bearings, and  beautiful and harmonious proportions the truthful student
can find in these duties, he "is  accustomed  to survey" in them, is a cu-
rious puzzle.
   A century ago, wigs, rings  on the fingers,  a gold snuff box,  a gold
headed cane, and small clothes, were the useful and ornamental  insignia
of the profession.   Is it possible the Doctor  could  have been so lost in
the dreams of the  past, as to forget that republican simplicity has torn
away those "useful  and ornamental" appendages of the profession?
   Dr.  Bell  asserts  "that a professor frankly acknowledged he  did not
know what was meant by the Institutes of Medicine."  But he does not
say what kind of institutes.  The professor might be well excused if he
alluded to Dr. Bell's  institutes,  for  it is very clear the doctor  knows no
more of the  institutes  of medicine than  the old  definitions of Gaubius
and Boerhaave.
   He continues to say,  "another of the  three, more wonderful to relate,
was the  professor of this branch!"  The  meaning of this is somewhat
obscure.   Does he intend to say that the professor confessed an ignorance
of what was meant by the institutes ?  This would  be a gross untruth.
They  had no conversation on this subject.   Does  he  intend merely that
he was one of those "who would tear away the useful and ornamental parts
of the profession."   No  great harm in that.  Or does he confound the
profession of medicine with the science of  medicine, and designate the
institutes—Physiology, Pathology, Therapeutics, and Hygiene as merely
useful and  ornamental  parts, not the indispensable, the very foundation
on which medicine stands.  If the institutes are nothing more than "use-
ful and ornamental,"  the entire omission of them would  not be of material
consequence in any course of medical instruction.   The day for the mere
useful and ornamental has passed.   His objurgations are baseless and ri-
diculous, and his alarm for the integrity of the institute idle and affected.
It is not true that there  was an intention to curtail or  "razee" the insti-
tutes,  as  he has.expressed it in  another  publication.   The proposition
was to conjoin Therapeutics with Materia Medica, and to change  the title 
19
of the chair to that of Materia  Medica and Therapeutics.   The incon-
sistency of Dr. Bell in making this  proposed arrangement  a subject of
attack is most glaring.   In his enumeration of  the  sub-divisions of the
Institutes he throws Therapeutics overboard; he omits  them  entirely—
what  assurance then, is it in him to  assert, that  the union of Therapeu-
tics with Materia Medica, would have been a curtailing of the Institutes ?
   The practical application of Therapeutics does not belong to the Insti-
tutes.  Therapeutics associate directly with Materia Medica, to which
they  give interest  and importance, and  render practical experience of
disease and its treatment available.  Without abridging or affecting in
any manner  the Institutes, the  connection  would have been a decided
improvement.  The objection of  Dr. Bell  to  this  proposition  appears
singular.  He was an aspirant to the chair.   The union of Therapeutics
to it  would have imparted greater dignity  and a higher practical cha-
racter, but would have required more elevated science and qualifications
to fill it.  Is  it  possible  this consideration  could have  influenced him ?
His example will not be copied in making a  suspicion an assertion.
   Doctor Bell evidently  has no distinct idea of the nature and special
value of the Institutes.   Hence he is contradictory, and his meaning ob-
scure.  It is evident his  chief object was  to libel, and in the absence of
truthful  grounds, he resorted dishonestly  to a " weak invention"  as  an
excuse for malicious invective, and for tacking to it a stale quotation.
   Nosce teipsum, know thyself, is the wise admonition of the sage, and of
the satirist and poet. This knowledge would save many from  making ridi-
culous exhibitions, and from painful failures.  With all  his acquirements
Dr. Bell is deficient in this one knowledge.   He does not know himself.
It will be doing him a  service  to make  him acquainted with  himself.
We will  draw his portrait.   It may not be done  with artistic skill, but it
will not be a daubing or. a caricature.
   Nature has bestowed on him  excellent qualities, which  if rightly di-
rected and restricted to the field  of his capacity, would  have insured  for
him success, and a solid well-earned reputation.  He  is endowed with
perseverance, application, and industry.   He is  an  indefatigable reader,
oft mistaken for  a student, and has learned nothing  except from books.
Nature has denied him genius, invention, the talent of  observation, and 
•20
practical  tact.   He possesses  no innate fervency of soil, without which
cultivation can give no fertility.
   Unfortunately for him  he travelled, and  supposed whoever was  tra-
velled was wise.   In Italy he was indoctrinated in the modified Rasoria-
nism of Professor Tomassini.   This is the basis of his medical knowledge,
and having faithfully  "imbibed the lessons of  a wise experience  and
truthful philosophy," which,  singular for wisdom  and truth, no longer
exist in science, he believed his solid capital completed when he had only
stuffed himself with reminiscences.   Satisfied with his attainments, there
only remained the  power of communicating them to render them profit-
able.  Self-destined to a professorship,  he must needs be an orator to
captivate students.   Elocution became  the pursuit  of his life.   Orator
fit;  poeta nascitur, has become an adage.   The  poet sacrificed truth for
the  antithesis.   Dr. Bell has proved it.  Never was  labor  more  assidu-
ously devoted to a purpose.  It was  in vain.   The vivida  vis animi is
as much an attribute of the orator as of the poet.   When not bestowed
by nature no application can impart it.   He has been denied the gifts
that constitute the orator; he  does  not rise above  the elevation of an
ordinary speaker.   His happiest efforts are a sneer.   The ideas borrowed
from the ripest scholars, and most erudite authorities, coldly delivered in
monotonous tones fall paralyzed and lifeless on the ear.  If Dr. Bell  has
failed to " win golden  opinions"  as an orator,  he has been more happy
in gaining soubriquets.   One  recalls  some lines of a late  translation of
iEschylus:

             Poes a Providence rule in the fate of a word,
             Sways there in heaven a viewless power,
             O'er the chance of the tongue in the naming hour !
                                       {Ding-dong-bell!)

   Whilst Dr. Bell has been devoted to the fruitless  pursuit of the deco-
rations of style, gathering flowers of  rhetoric and scraps of poetry  " to
cheer his youthful followers on their way," he  has neglected the sub-
stantial and the true.  He  cultivated dialectics,  and is ignorant of science.
He  returns to " the schools of Socrates, of Aristotle, and of Plato," to
catch the faint echoes of the dialectics of the  past, and refuses to enter 
21
the school of nature open before  him, where  her clear voice is  heard
teaching eternal truths, and where are lavished unbounded  treasures of
knowledge with prodigal hand to her followers.
   Dr. Bell believes that  the old  speculative medicine of the past still
exists.  His biblical erudition should have taught him " old things are
passed  away, all things  are new."   It is  apparently unknown to Dr.
Bell that  speculative medicine taught by dialectics, is fast disappearing,
its foundations sapped by the introduction into medical science of positive
philosophy, observation and experiment.   Medicine is demonstrative, not
didactic;  it has entered into the circle of the positive sciences.  Had Dr.
Bell devoted himself to science and not to idle dialectics, an intellectual
process applicable to the sustaining of falsehood as well as of truth,—and
had he  confined himself to the substantial, and not vainly wasted his efforts
to seize the shadow, he might have reaped  the same success that others,
inferior to himself, have secured.
   Dr. Bell has been ambitious of  the reputation  of  authorship.  He is
no more than a book-maker.  This is no difficult art.   " Books are made
as apothecaries make mixtures."   But when the principal alteration and
addition consists in the erasure of an author's name on the title page, and
the substitution of his own, some other appellation might be given to the
act.   In all  the books he has made, not a single thought is his own,  or
an idea that has germinated in his mind.
   The  best of these is his edition of  Stokes' Practice.   To this, Dr. Bell
has made  liberal  contributions, especially on the subject of  fevers.  Our
southern  physicians rely too much  on English authorities.  With the
exception of those whose experience is obtained in the East and West
Indies, they are unacquainted with remittent, bilious, and pernicious in-
termittent fevers, like those prevalent in the Southern and Middle  States.
The best writers on those  fevers  are to be found amongst the  Italian
authors, and some of the French, especially  Alibert.   Dr. Bell has drawn
from those  sources, and  in this way has  imparted valuable information,
otherwise unknown to many of the practitioners of this country.
   In giving this merit justly due to Dr. Bell, he remains no more than
a maker of books, not a writer.   The line of Voltaire's  epigram  on the
Abbe Troublet, correctly defines the character of his authorship : 
oo
                  "II compilait, il compilait, il compilait."
  Controversies are  to  be avoided.   Little good  can come  from them.
They are painful and distasteful to correct minds.   When engaged in
useful pursuits they are a waste of time that could be employed to more
advantage.   This notice of Dr.  Bell's memorial, or  more properly,  libel
on the  University and  its officers,  is the result  of an accident, which
caused a suspension of professional engagements.  This leisure has been
partly occupied by this  reply.   The necessity or propriety of it is felt to
be somewhat  doubtful,  for " there is no slander  though he do nothing
but rail."                                                     S. J.
  Rockaway,  Long Island, Sept. 1, 1850.

  P.  S.—In a note, page 2,  Dr. Bell has introduced a  scrap of personal
history.  It is a small  affair, but whatever is worth relating  should be
told correctly.   Dr. Bell's statement is a distortion of the facts.
  Doctor Bell "believes" that by  him, and "his having taught  the
Institutes  of Medicine  in  the  Medical Institute," the trustees were in-
duced to consent to Dr.  Chapman's proposal for an assistant to teach the
Institutes in the University.   This is no more than the " flattering  unc-
tion" of his self-esteem.   He reproaches also " the present incumbent
of the Institutes for not remembering his (Dr. Bell's) instrumentality in
procuring him his first appointment."  It is certainly difficult to remem-
ber what never occurred.   A plain narrative of facts will show  the errors
into which Dr. Bell is led by the delusions of his conceit.
  The Institutes of Medicine have  entered into the courses of medical
instruction of the University since its foundation.   They were attached
to the chair of the Theory and Practice, as is  proved by its original title,
" Chair of the Institutes, and Practice of Medicine."
  They were  taught  in the  University  long before Dr.  Bell  had com-
menced his medical studies.  The course  of Professor Rush was divided
into two parts: the first consisted  of the Institutes, and occupied the
period from the commencement of the session in November until the be-
ginning of January; the second part comprised the Practice of Medicine,
and  terminated the first of March.  Two months were devoted  to  the 
23
Institutes, and two to the Practice of Medicine.  From this statement
can be seen the breadth and depth " of the wise experience and the truth-
ful philosophy"  of those palmy days it serves the purpose of Dr.  Bell to
panegyrize.
   Professor Barton, who succeeded Dr. Rush, lived to deliver but one
course of lectures.   He attempted the Institutes, which consisted of some
fragments of Natural History.   As he had no time to prepare a course
of lectures, it would be unjust to speak of this imperfect attempt.
   Professor Chapman,  who  followed Dr. Barton, endeavored to  carry
into effect the intention  of the chair, expressed in its title.  He appro-
priated the two first months of his  course to physiology, and the last two
to the practice of medicine.   After two or three years he discovered the
impossibility of  doing justice to either branch.   He wisely changed his
plan, and substituted for a course of Physiology, some general lectures
on Etiology and Epidemics;  and devoted his efforts and the larger part
of the course to the Practice of Medicine. The Institutes,  and with
them Physiology, which until this time had entered into the instruc-
tion of the University, were  in consequence for some  years in abeyance.
 A plan of Medical Instruction without Physiology, one of its most im-
portant branches, was an inexcusable anomaly.   No  one felt the incon-
gruity more sensibly than Professor Chapman.  He required no prompter
to induce him, as far as was in his  power, to effect its correction.  He
accordingly applied to  the Trustees for authority to  appoint an assist-
ant for the purpose of teaching the Institutes, and named " the  present
 incumbent" as the one  he  had selected for that purpose.   The  appli-
cation was granted and the  selection concurred in, provided it met the
sanction of the Faculty, which was immediately granted.
   The official  announcement of the appointment, by Professor Chap-
man, was the first information given to the incumbent that such a step
was in contemplation.   He  mentioned at the same  time, that he had
not before spoken  of it  as  he  was uncertain  whether  his proposition
would be agreed to, and he  would  not excite  expectations that might
not be realized.  He further remarked, we agree in some  opinions, in
others we differ, teach what  you believe to be true. 
24
   This is the correct statement of the transaction.  In  what manner
 Dr. Bell or  his  lectures procured for  " the present incumbent" this
 appointment is inconceivable.  For a logician the conclusion is a flagrant
 non sequitur.   It should have been Dr. Bell who ought to have reaped
 the benefit of bis own labors.   He can  not mean that his lectures
 caused him to be  passed by, and another to be selected who had never
 handled the subject.
   Dr. Bell's relation  of  the  election  to  the  chair  of the Institutes is
 equally imperfect.  The  " present incumbent" made no application for
 it: he was nominated and elected without  his action, solicitation or
 concurrence—he  was  contemplating to  decline the office.   Professors
 Chapman  and  Hare having heard of his  intention, waited  on  him,
 remonstrated with and pressed him  to accept the appointment. Professor
 Chapman made the request in such terms, as, from  former obligations,
to  preclude a refusal. 

R E VIE W
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