Page:An Examination of Certain Charges - Alfred Stillé.djvu/23

. We say nothing of the ridiculous nature of the attack; the talents of the Professors, and the reputation of the respective schools, are sufficiently known to the public, not to require further comment on our part. But we are inclined to think, that if carefully weighed, it will explain the anxiety displayed by 'a Physician,' to forestall Dr. Coxe in his vindication on other grounds than those stated by himself. It will be recollected, that at a certain stage of his argument, he engages in numerical details, relative to the signers of the resolutions presented to the Board of Trustees, and which were passed at a meeting of the students, held on the 3rd December, 1834. Now these details could not have been procured from any other person than the Ex-Professor, without placing his secret at the disposal of gentlemen not likely to respect it, after the rough treatment received at his hands. He must therefore have been aware, that Dr. Coxe, at the time of the publication of the article, was engaged in preparing a statement of the events terminating in his expulsion from the chair of Materia Medica; and we would particularly suggest, that the article is not so much a defence of Dr. Coxe, as an attack upon the highly honoured and respected physicians who compose the Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. Where was the necessity then, we would ask, of intruding upon the public, a communication on this subject, when the author must have been in possession of the knowledge, that the venerable and learned Ex-Professor, was himself collecting documents preparatory to publishing a vindicatory account of the transactions which preceded and attended his expulsion? We are inclined to think it requires but a moment's reflection to answer this interrogatory.

Upon the publication of the resolutions of the class concerning the article in the Pennsylvanian, a second article appeared, which the committee would not condescend to notice, did it not attempt to prejudge the question now submitted to the public for decision. The main object of this piece is to rebut the assertion of the resolutions, that 'a Physician' refused to give up his name, &c. To this end he publishes the correspondence contained in a previous part of this paper. A simple reference to those documents will render it clear that there is little difference between denying such information absolutely, and postponing its communication until the onus has been shifted to other shoulders, more capable of bearing it, and the original culprit left to the insignificance from which he sprang. As the writer has stated his errors to be of trivial importance, we will specify one in addition to those already disposed of, which, if of no intrinsic importance throws some light upon the general character of the article. We respectfully request the author of the anonymous communication published in the Pennsylvanian of the 21st ult. to inform the committee of the Medical class of the University of Pennsylvania, an Institution whose fame is established on the firmest basis throughout the Old and New Worlds, by what trick of magic he has contrived to obtain such an insight into the regions of futurity as to be able to relate events occurring on the 15th January, 1835, in a communication dated on the 12th of the same month and year? We have only to add that our constituents having deemed it not injudicious "that a refutation of his account of their transactions should be prepared, we think it unnecessary on our part otherwise to notice his remark upon that subject, than by hinting that it would be