V A T T I E \~\ (j". L . \
 
 
r
TO  THE  PHYSICTA^T
OF   THE   STATE  OF   OHIO.
      " He 's a bad Surgeon, that for pity spared, ^C. U'JfJr *  ^
       The part corrupted, till the gangrene sjjfead,       -.,■,"%
       And all the body perish ; he that's merciful          ' ~>
       Unto the bad, is cruel to the just."  C       ) A Iv*  ^



  In a published letter addressed to Dr. Robt. Thompson,
by Dr. Marmaduke B. Wright, late professor in the Medical
College of Ohio, the  Institution and its Trustees are ar-
raigned in a manner that seems  to demand some notice.
The temper and  spirit of the letter will undoubtedly meet
with that rebuke which it so justly merits from all  disinter-
ested  and dispassionate persons.  But its false statements
and malignant designs may not be so readily comprehended
or exposed by persons living at a distance  from the city ;
and lest  silence  under its imputations  should by any be
construed into an acknowledgment of their truth, I deem it
proper to make a brief reply, even at the hazard of giving
to the ex-professor  an importance  to  which  neither  his
professional position in the State, or his standing at home
entitle him.
  It is quite natural that Dr. Wright  rhould ascribe  his
displacement from the Faculty to  "personal pique," or to
some other equally improbable motive operating upon the
Board of Trustees, rather than to its only true and proper 
2
cause.   His wounded pride, it will be perceived, is deeply
concerned in making out for himself the best possible case,
but its  suggestions 1 hope will not be received as true, nor
can it  be°expected that they should meet  the sanction of
tacit acquiescence.  It is  utterly false that the Board of
Trustees were influenced in their action towards Dr. Wright
by any private griefs or by "personal pique."  The character
of the gentleman composing the Board, is a sufficient refu-
tation of the slander where they are known, and where they
are not, the extreme  improbability of such an  extensive
combination of Trustees, as is  pre-supposed against any
professor upon merely personal grounds, may be confidently
relied upon to rebut the calumny.  The organic law of the
Institution requires eight out of eleven Trustees  to remove
a professor,  a provision competent surely if any be, to
protect him in his rights and to shield him against prejudice
and hasty judgment.
  To all who have had  the opportunity or  the interest to
look into the condition of the Medical College of Ohio for
some time past, it is well known that Dr. Wright failed to
give satisfaction  to his classes, and  in many instances so
great was this discontent that  it was embodied in petitions
for  his removal, numerously  signed  by the students and
suppressed only by the urgent entreaties of one or more of his
respected colleagues.   To these efforts of his amiable asso-
ciates, and to a certain reputation which he contrived to create
for himself as a legislative manager, and tactician, the doctor
has owed for many years his  position  in the school, rather
than to his talents or capacity as a teacher.  These  props
were not sufficient however in the judgment of the present
Board of Trustees, to maintain a decided unpopular professor
in the Institution, and Dr. Wright was accordingly displaced.
The mode adopted for this purpose was recommended by a
sincere  desire, on the part of the Board,  to give as little
offence as practicable, in the discharge of  a painful duty,
and .not as the late professor observes, for the  purpose of 
3
accomplishing indirectly what they were afraid to attempt
directly.  It is well ascertained that  the professor  could
have  been reached more promptly by  a direct action upon
his chair than by  a vacation of all the chairs.  Of the Trus-
tees who saw the necessity for Dr. Wright's removal, and
were  at all times  ready to vote for the  measure as an inde-
pendent one, there were several who hesitated to accomplish
it  by means that might possibly prove offensive to other
professors, whose talents and general demeanor commanded
their  confidence and respect.   In connection with  this sub-
ject it should be distinctly remembered that the chairs were
vacated almost unanimously,  eight to one, and  the same
vote could have been obtained at a previous meeting of the
Trustees  to displace Dr. Wright by a special action upon
his chair.   But  the Board preferred  to accomplish their
object in a manner which they supposed would be less of-
fensive and mortifying.   Upon a review of  the whole case,
the Trustees believe that they  have discharged their duty
to the College in  the premises, and nothing but their duty.
   The attempt of Dr. Wright to  excite the professional
sentiment and feelings of the country physicians, against the
government of  the Institution  is in perfect  harmony with
his character—a  pestilent and  restless agitator, his whole
career while connected with the College, was characterized
by ceaseless manoeuvres to keep himself in place; and now
that he  is out,  to undermine its prospects by unscrupulous
fabrications.  That there  ever was  any just  reason  for
charging any of our predecessors in the Board of Trustees
with disregarding "the voice of the profession throughout the
State" I do not believe.  On the part of the present Board,
I repel  the charge, and demand the proof.   Who of us, or
of the profession of the city, has ever taunted country doc-
tors,  or propounded the insolent query "what do country
doctors  know about the affairs of the Medical College of
Ohio?"    I  venture to  say  not one can be named.   In our
labor of regenerating the  College, acknowledged to be in 
4
a prostrate and fallen  condition, we disclaim allegiance to
any  division or section of  doctors, founded  upon locality,
whether of country or city, we reject advice from none and
expect from all a hearty  and cordial co-operation,  in eleva-
ting  the institution to a position worthy  of the great State
whose name it bears, and whose generous  patronage it has
shared: and in  this expectation we have an  abiding and
unfaltering confidence.
   The charge that the Trustees  are utterly regardless of
the public character of the Institution in appointments and
removals, is unfounded,  and conies with bad grace from
Dr. Wright, who not many winters since, directed his whole
legislative efforts to obtain the  passage of a law to transfer
the  Institution in  toto, to himself and  to his colleagues,
thereby desiring to secure to himself a professorship for life.
But the remainder of the Faculty,  to their  credit be it said,
entered their solemn protest against the  measure.
   The doctor, in his great grief for the unfortunate condition
of the institution, proposes the  following question,—"^ hat
is to be done to place the College above the malign influences
which surround it, and  to secure it against change' change!?"
and  then replies by referring to the wisdom of the next Le-
gislature  for an answer; Evidently intimating that  he will
be there as a lobby member, and by his  great  influence and
his undoubted qualifications for intrigue, succeed in placing
the Institution in a position by  which he may gratify his ex-
cessive desire to appear before a Board of Concours as a can-
didate for place; or demolish the College in toto and scatter
the  fragments into the hands of its enemies.
   In his twaddle  about  his mission to  the Legislature, his
reference to Edward  C.  Roll,  A. N. Riddle, and myself,
there is a ridiculous assumption of consequence and display
of vanity, at which one could scarcely repress  his risible
faculties,  but for the depravity exhibited in the unblushing
falsehood that he acted as the  agent of the College and the
 Faculty; for I am  fully authorized to state  that he was not 
5
appointed, delegated, or requested, by either- the Trustees
or Faculty, to go to Columbus last winter, on any business
connected with the  Institution and that his visit to the me-
tropolis wholly voluntary, has, like all his preceding agen-
cies, real or pretended,  but one object, that of securing him-
self in his professorship while he was  neglecting its duties.
The experience of  the  last few  months and his failure to
mould the Board of Trustees to  suit  his own purposes, has
no doubt taught him that "clocks wont go as  they are set,"
but all who are familiar with the  doctor's character will at
once admit as an axiom that,
    " Irregular man's ne'er constant—never certain."

   His first quotation from the poets reminds me of a little
couplet as applicable to himself,  but which I will not give.
It alludes to a certain animal, the more he climbs the more
he shows a posteriori.
   Having thus very briefly noticed,  and exposed the alle-
gations and charges of the late  Professor against the Trus-
tees of the  Medical College of  Ohio,  it is perhaps a work
of supererrogation to bestow any further attention upon his
very  unique pamphlet.    There are  a few points, however,
in his letters to the Board to which  it may be as well to
make a concise reference.  In the first epistle of the series,
it will be perceived that, ever true to himself, he deprecates
the vacation of the chairs, knowing  full  well  that if that
were once accomplished, he could not command the neces-
sary  vote to reinstate him.
   In his second letter  Dr. Wright insinuates the existence
of charges against  him, and demands an investigation; and
on the last page of his pamphlet he introduces the yeas and
nays on a resolution calling for  charges and specifications,
 For what  purpose  this was done, it  is difficult to imagine,
 unless it was  to produce indirectly an impression on the
minds of his readers that this vote was a test of his  strength
in the Board.   If this was his  object, I must pronounce it 
G
a disingenious artifice and unworthy even  of Dr. Wright
himself.
   The demand for an investigation was made undoubtedly
with the design  of raising the cry of persecution, and not
with any expectation  that it Avould or ought to be granted.
The whole thing within itself is preposterous, and a solitary
example of such a proceeding cannot, I believe, be found
in the various mutations and revolutions which have marked
the history of  our own or of other Medical Colleges.
  When  the Trustees of an Institution become  satisfied
that a professor  is not discharging his duties ably or accep-
tably, or that he is in any other manner a hinderance to its
prosperity, they have an undoubted right (nay it is their
imperative duty), to remove him, regardless of all clamor
which may be raised by himself or by sympathizing friends.
Such was precisely the case of Dr. Wright.   The Trustees
believed, on evidence  satisfactory  to themselves, and which
they are persuaded would carry conviction to all other dis-
interested minds, that his continuance in the school was dis-
advantageous to it, and in leaving him  out of  the Faculty
they simply discharged,  in  the  least offensive manner, a
duty which they were not at liberty to postpone or evade.
They had no personal altercation and could have none with
Dr. Wright, and they have not at any time indulged in un-
kind feelings towards  him.
  With this general defence of the Board of Trustees against
the aspersions  of Dr.  Wright, I  forbear on the present oc-
casion to enter on the discussion  of  the many topics sug-
gested by his letter.   I have no disposition to prosecute the
controversy, however just the provocation, or abundant the
material, in a harsh spirit, and I trust when the excitement
of the moment shall have passed away, that a more modest
and truthful appreciation of himself may teach the gentle-
man that he is not wholly invulnerable  on any one of the
points which he  has so imprudently raised—a  word to the 
7
wise is sufficient.  Of the various objections to the late pro-
fessor, his letter discloses one of which I was ignorant until
it was unveiled by himself.  It is peculiar in its character,
and cannot be exhibited more appropriately than in his own
language, and I leave  it for  the reader to judge whether
he or I is most amenable to the charge of extending to the
eclectics,  "sympathy and  secret aid."—"If",  says  this
innocent martyr, " the  (my) defamers  promise to with-
draw their opposition  upon  no other ground than that I
shall  cease  my  opposition to a full salivating use of calo-
mel  and  to  the  Samson-like practice  of olden times,  I
have only to ssy, that  I will  never yield principle to this
extent while God lets me five, and whilst my experience,
observations, and reflections,  all  teach me I am right.  I
feel  it to be a  moral  duty on all appropriate  occasions
to wage a warfare against all such medical abominations."
Now  this seems to  me  very much like conjuring up spec-
tres to flight them.   All medical men of the present day
are united in their opposition to what may be emphatically
termed the abuse of calomel, and the gentleman only stands
side by  side with his brethren in his reprobation of "medi-
cal  abominations."  But let him beware lest his opposition
to the abuse of calomel do not extend to its use, and that
at some future time he be found with empirics  catering for
business by pandering to the ignorant prejudices of the vul-
gar.  May this  timely  warning save him from  so foul a
degradation.
  In conclusion of this  reply, which has already extended
beyond  the limit I had prescribed to myself,  I beg to give
the gentleman this parting admonition, that when next he
finds it necessary to bolster himself up by a laudatory letter
from the Township Trustees, who really know as little about
the Professors, and the Medical College of Ohio,  as  any
other three worthy individuals  in the community, he should
be more careful to  have the letter  indited by some other 
                           8
                         \i
hand than his own.   Chirqgpraphy is often a most  potent
as well,  as unwelcome witness.
         "His effort was a fine si&mple on the whole,
         Of Balderdash, which the learn'd call rigmMole."

                     J. L.VATTIER,  M. D.,
                         One of the Board of Trusteee.
   Cincinnati, May 27,  1850.
 i
 I
1