Page:An Examination of Certain Charges - Alfred Stillé.djvu/7

 owing to the manner and occasion of their exhibition, very unequivocally of an opposite meaning. They were made upon a frequent repetition of the name of an ancient father of medical science, and of quotations from the language in which he wrote. The interruption here noticed, proceeded, however, from a very few individuals, and upon its being repeated was each time met by the general and hearty disapprobation of the class; not that the body of the class conceived the lecture of the professor either entertaining or useful, but that they were indignant, that any one holding so distinguished a station should be the subject of undisguised and wanton insult. Yet the whole scene was but a rehearsal of that occurring at the introductory of the same professor, in the fall of 1833. At that time he commenced a review of the works of Galen, (amounting in all, it is understood, to several hundred volumes,) and arrived in the course of this exercise to the third or fourth volume of his 'Simial Anatomy,' or, an Anatomy founded on the examination of monkeys. Throughout the whole lecture there was not a moment of respectful silence, but constant interruptions, similar to those related above, attended by a perpetual ingress and egress of persons to and from the room. The professor abruptly concluded his discourse, announcing his determination to prosecute it at some more convenient season. This it appears did not arrive till the commencement of the session just closed, at which time, the argument was resumed, to prove Galen and his cotemporariescontemporaries [sic] well skilled in anatomy. If the whole class had manifested displeasure, at such a mode of occupying their time, we cannot but deem a palliation, if not excuse, would have been found in their inability to conceive the immediate or remote bearing of the discussion on the subject of Materia Medica and Pharmacy. Very many of them, mindful of the lecture of '33, chose, during the present one, to be absent, while those who did attend, whether first or second course students, we believe were impressed with but one opinion in regard to the value of the lecture they had listened to. We must repeat then, while we reprobate the act of those who annoyed the lecturer by their clamor or otherwise, that some palliation does exist in the circumstances of the case, although the agitators were in number very few, and received the prompt reprimand of the class.

On the whole, we infer from what has been stated, 1st. That as there was enough in the lectures of the professor to account for the disturbance which occurred, it is illogical to look beyond those lectures for the cause of the disturbance. 2nd. If it is granted that extraneous and improper influence was used to bring about the dissatisfaction at the introductory of the session just completed, by parity of reason, the same influences must be assigned as producing the dissatisfaction at the commencement of the session 1833–34; a conclusion which it is not pretended to support.

We are now come to consider the first general action of the class upon the subject which so deeply interested them. It was on Tuesday Dec. 2nd, 1834, that a student who is not a private pupil of any one of the professors, who has no personal acquaintance with any individual concerned in the government of the Institution, who, being actuated by his individual dissatisfaction with the lectures of Dr. Coxe, and a belief