committee in the case of Mary. We have further the evidence of Dr. Simmons, who told Dr. Stone, that previous to the operation, Mary could perceive birds in the air, and the evidence of Dr. Crawford, who says that he saw Mary previous to the operation, carefully inspecting and examining a four bit bill. From the above evidence on the point before us, it is clear that the case was not one of total blindness from congenital cataract, and that therefore, the statement on this subject in the report of the True American is false.

The report states that one of the singular difficulties of the operation arose from the impossibility of prompt communication with the patient; and it gives it throughout to be understood, that the woman could not speak English. Now not a single witness says that she could not speak English. On the contrary, all the witnesses on this point say, that she spoke English well enough for all practical purposes, and some of them say that she frequently interpreted for her Indian brethren. This will be distinctly seen by reference. to the certificates forming a part of this report. The report then of the case in the True American certainly is false, in the respect just indicated.

The report in the True American gives a speech said to have been made by Cloud, a Seminole Chief. It will be seen from the certificate of Dr. Stone of Dr. Simmons' account of the statement made by Mary to him, (Dr. Simmons) that the speech is the offspring of imagination. Cloud never said any thing of the "great medicine," nor did he call the whites "the pale faces," an expression which Mary said was never applied to them. The report is therefore false, as to the speech put in Cloud's mouth.

The report in the American further says, that some of the Chiefs of the Seminoles were present at the operation. No witness supports this statement, and Dr. Crawford says he saw only Cloud present. Thus it would seem that in this particular the report is false.

The report says, that Mary's life had been passed in the wilds of Florida. But Mary told Drs. Palmer, Snowden, Simmons and others, that she had lived two years with a family in Tallahassee, and that she had spoken English from her

infancy. The report then is false, as to Mary's life having been passed in the wilds of Florida.

The report says, that the cataract was successfully removed. Drs. Lindoe, Easton and Wiedeman, declare that the operation was successful in every respect. Dr. Simmons testifies too that it was successful in one eye. In opposition to the above statements of Messrs Lindoe and Company, we have the statement of the following gentlemen, to wit: Drs. Thompson, Snowden, Picton, Palmer, Harris, Martin, Fortin, Byrenheidt and Lee, which says that the vision of the left eye has been irrecoverably lost, and that of the right materially injured. The report then is false, in regard to the claim of a successful operation.

From the above review of facts, it appears that all the material statements in the report of the American are false, and that the contrary statements of the Committee of the Society are true. And yet Dr. Luzenberg has the effrontery say that the statements of the committee are "a tissue of falsehoods."

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The next question is, did Dr. C. A. Luzenberg directly or indirectly authorise or instigate the report?

Dr. Luzenberg in his letter does not expressly deny that he wrote the report in the American; but we understand him virtually to do so, from the letters enclosed in that report. But though Dr. Luzenberg may have denied the authorship of that paper, has he not sanctioned, or to use the word in the question we are considering, authorised its publication. He styles the report of the committee "a tissue of falsehoods." Now as the statements in the report of the committee are chiefly contradictions of the statements in the report of the True American, is it not fair to conclude that Dr. Luzenberg's denunciation of the former report, is an endorsement of the latter?

But further, Dr. Luzenberg appears by letter before the Society "in justification of himself," and to that end encloses certificates to prove the statements in the True American correct. Here then is conclusive evidence of his identifying himself with, or giving his sanction or authority to the report in the True American. But there is still more conclu

sive, more positive evidence on the subject. Before we adduce that testimony, we will take a brief notice of the letters of Messrs Gibson and Fisher, a notice which will add another to the thousand illustrations of the truth, that falsehood walks in crooked paths and by-ways, and knavery oft betrays itself by the very pains it takes to screen the objects of its care. Messrs Fisher and Gibson both say they met Dr. Luzenberg the day after the operation. Gibson says, that at the meeting, in reply to the question put by him to Dr. Luzenberg, whether the operation on Mary had terminated successfully, Dr. Luzenberg gave him "quite scanty information." But Fisher says, in his letter to Dr. Luzenberg, that he (Fisher) wrote the report "from his own unbiased feelings, and beyond a brief invitation to witness the operation, and a simple announcement of its termination, without a word in conversation or communication, directly or indirectly passing between us." Now there is evidently a want of dove-tailing in this Editorial job work. Why should Dr. Luzenberg give his regular puffer, for such Gibson has notoriously been for years, "scanty information?" and why should Fisher, present when that information said to be scanty was given, hear nothing but that the operation had terminated successfully? an assertion which we have seen was false. The whole story has been badly made up. Messrs Gibson and Fisher seem to be very much perplexed to account for the technicalities in the report; but if they had only read it over before writing their letters, they would have seen that it is not stuffed with technicalities, and that it is nothing more than an attempt to mislead the public.

Gibson says he was very much interested in the case, because he had been among the Indians last summer at Pass Christian. But yet so much did the love of sport exceed in him the interest of humanity, that he preferred witnessing a horse race to the operation. And Fisher says, when he indicted the report, "he felt enthusiasm supplying the place of knowledge," which being translated into a more homely phrase, means that he indulged his imagination at the expense of his character.

Now would it not have been better for Messrs Gibson and Fisher, instead of all the fictions they have dealt in, to have told the truth at once; to have said that the piece was' written by Fisher, upon the information furnished him by Dr. Luzenberg, and was then submitted to Dr. Luzenberg, who approved it and authorised its publication. The following certificate shews that the report was written by Fisher and submitted to Luzenberg previous to its publication, and approved by him.

Freeman's Certificate.

The subscriber has been for some time an inmate in the store of Mr. Shaw. He would be sorry to do any thing which could be construed into a violation of domestic confidence, and although a young man whose future interests may be compromised in this community by making the following statements, yet when called upon for information on the following subject, he cannot hesitate to declare that he has frequently heard it distinctly stated by Dr. Shaw, that Mr. Fisher, the sub-editor of the True American, had declared to him, that Mr. Fisher had exhibited to Dr Luzenberg a piece entitled "Sight given to the born blind" previous to its publication, and that the statements therein had met with the entire approbation of Dr. Luzenberg.

(Signed)

W. FREEMAN.

N. B. The same statement has been confirmed on a visit to Dr. Shaw's in the last forty-eight hours.

Other testimony in the possession of the committee corroborates this certificate.

From the above facts and arguments, we think it is clear that Dr. Luzenberg directly sanctioned and authorised the report of the case in the True American; and such was the unanimous decision of the Society. Dr. Osborn, who has since declared himself opposed to the expulsion of Dr. Luzenberg, being present and acquiescing in, or not dissenting from that decision.

The third question is, is Dr. Luzenberg guilty of unprofessional conduct in failing to contradict that report in a formal manner?

This question, as understood and voted on by the Society, meant supposing Dr. Luzenberg to have known of the publication of the false report in the True American, and

supposing him not to have been the author of that publication, was it not his duty, as a professional man, to have 'publicly exposed its mistatements, and prevented its empirical circulation? This is a question of very easy solution. The first of all moral obligations is to speak and to maintain the truth. Upon its observance the honor and happiness of life chiefly depend. Dispense with it, and there is no longer any safety in society. All confidence between man and man immediately ceases; and distrust, suspicions, dissentions and strifes take the place of candor, mutual reliance, fair dealing and peace. Correlative with the obligation to speak and to maintain the truth, is the obligation to expose and defeat falsehood. He who silently suffers a statement, known by him to be false, to be proclamed and circulated among men as true, is in the eye of morality as criminal as the author and publisher of that statement himself. Not to denounce is to sanction the untruth; it is, to borrow an illustration from the bar, to aid and abet in passing as true a counterfeit paper, knowing the same to be counterfeit. Hence, Dr. Luzenberg's silence as to the mistatements in the report of the True American, was immoral and criminal: and as that immorality related to a report of a surgical operation, said to have been performed by him, it was also a professional delinquency. Self love and self conceit may so blind a man to his own demerits, as to make him not only not rebuke, but even receive with satisfaction the unfounded compliments of the dependent or sycophantic: but no self love, no self conceit, can be an excuse for sanctioning a gross and palpable mistatement of the facts of an operation, and of the result of that operation. The Physico Medical Society felt disgusted both at the falsehood of the report, and at the empirical and immoral conduct of Dr. Luzenberg, in suffering those falsehoods to be circulated as true in the unusual and unprofessional form of a meagre newspaper article. It was thought by them in relation to the latter view of the matter, that a daily newspaper was not the most fit and proper vehicle of medical information, that room could not be had in it for those details, which are necessary to render a report satisfactory to an intelligent mind; that the terms