The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1861-12-03 00:00:00

THE DORSET COUNTY HOSPITAL.

IT is reported of the illustrious Robert Macuire that,
when he hail tried murder, forgery, and 'Kitty lar-
ceny ; when he had promoted bubble companies,
societh nony 'nes for peripatetic lx.cf. tei and ronlota•
Litory warm baths ; when he had managed theatres
and started newsiapers, and founded dernag,gue
clubs, and demonstrated the practicability of naviga-
tiag balloons, aud making sun-beams out of cucum-
bers, and finding all these schemes insufficient for
the great and vital purpose of invoking "Eolus and
raising the wind, he one day, being desperately
pushed and hard driven, proposed to his aide-de- I
camp and accomplice, ltertrand,ithat they should start
a new religion. Without going quite so far as this
extreme inventiveness, our contemporary, the Dorset
Chronicle, has hit upon an ingenious device for the
attainment of a particular object. It is related of
the eminent engineer Archimedes, that if he could
but find • fulcrum tor his lever, were that fulcrum
but a cobweb basis, he promised to move the world.
The fulcrum found by our contemporary is an anony-
mous letter, purporting to have been sent from
Salisbury, but bearing unmistakable evidence of
having been "manufactured," if uoten the premises,
at all events in Dorchester.
. . . .

But to conic more directly to our subject. A short
time since Mr. Tapp gave notice of his intention to
resign his post as surgeon to the Dorset County
Hospital. We need not stop to inquire what was
his motive torso doing—for motive there undoubtedly
was—but may remark that so suddenly was the move
taken, and so instantaneous was the subsequent
appearance of an address from Mr. Tudor, a gentle-
man whom Mr. Tapp had lately taken into partner-
ship with himself, that large numbers of the sub-
scribers received through that medium their first
intimation that a change was imminent in the hospital
riginie. Following closely upon the heels of this,
Mr. Alfred Ernson—a gentleman longand favourably
known in the vicinity of the county town, possessing
the coulideace of the hospital managers generally,
and, above all, formerly the resped«l tuad valued
house surgeon of this eery institution issued a
counter address to the ,•übscribeis, announcing him-
self as a candidate also for the vacant office. lle•
tween these two gentlemen, accordingly, at the
coining election, the contest will lie. The testimonials
of both arc before the public ; the electors possess
intellect as well as ourselves to discriminate between
the respective merits of the candidates, and were the
circumstances in connection se ith the affair only of
an ordinary character, we should deem it our duty to
be silent in reference to the matter. But there are
ocelsi ~,, s, and this appears to be one, %% ben to
remain silent is to be a partaker in other men's

sins.
We confess that to look simply on the surface of
the question, there seems scarcely any thing sufficiently
important to provoke hostilities ; nevertheless, if
we look below that surface, we shall see that there
are features in the case which not only explain the
zealous movements of the parties engaged, but
which are calculated to very seriously affect the
welfare of the County Hospital, and which, as •
consequence, call loudly for the unbiassed comment
of a free and independent press. The Chronicie's
" riff direct." and " made to order," for th 3 purpose
of serving as a fulcrum for those who would apply
the lever in raising in the estimation of the electors
Mr. Tutor's claims fur the office, as well as the tactics
displayed by those ai lio have been applying the
screw. are circumstances is 11;eli cannot he too severely
condemned by every well-wisher for the pros-
perity of one of our west valuable institu-
tions. Were the question simply one of merit,
no one would complain of each candidate's friends
canvassing for support in a fair slid honourable
manner; but is lien we are compelled to he the spec-
tators of an under-current that is going on, threat-
Ding to be productive of the direst consequences, and
affecting the interests of every subscriber, surely it is
time to raise a warning cry. There was a law at
Athens that made it treason to stand aloof in
sedition, and should we not be careful to preserve
the rights and privileges intact of the voluntary
supporters of our Hospital?
Our belief is, that the general body of the sub.
scribers really desire to secure the right man in the
right place; and were all dune open and shove board,
there can he no doubt as to the result of the forth-
coming election. It is true that Mr. Tudor's testi-
monials are of a pretentious character, but after
wading through them we were forcibly struck with
the absence of that, which would in our opinion,
have told more forcibly than all the rest besides,
while the question suggested itself why—assuming
that his former achievements and present skill to be
so transcendent as they are painted —has be aban-
doned the more ambitious walks of his profession for
a remote country practice? How conics it that he
is, by comparison with his antecedents, reposing on
his laurels, or only solicitous to aim at those m the
contest for which, as his partner informs the
subscribers, it is impossible for him to meet with
worthy competitors. The experience this gentle-
man boasts of having received On board the Dread-
nought, and which has So powerfully caught the
fancy of the uninitiated, is not, it appears, after all,
thought much of by medical men themselves. Of
what does such practice consist? What experience
is there on board the Dreadnought as regards women
and children? With the exception of accidents,
is not the disease principally syphillis, and is
not this disease strictly excluded from the Hospital ?
A man who has again and again performed the very
test operations of surgery with skill, dexterity, and
success, in Dorset, is surely more than a match for
any operator that ever issued from the Dreadnought.
That Mr. Euison has diskall this, we have the
strongest professional tee ony to establish. But
besides his claims of a skilled practitioner, Mr.
Eumen has been long known and valued by the vast
majority of subscribers best acquainted with the
benefits afforded by the hospital. ('an that which
effects the interests of such a valuable institution be
sold by 6 private individual? Would the office
of surgeon to the jail have been in the market, but
for the sagacity of the magistrates ? If trickery be
resorted to, will not this excellent institution suffer
by losing many subscribers. To this question we
answer emphatically, " Yes !" Aud shall the
interests of the retiring surgeon be subeerved at the