396 Miscellanies. 



14. Denial of a charge of plagiarism ; by Dr. W. C. Wallace, 

 Surgeon to the Institution for the Blind. — In the London Magazine of 

 Natural History, for March, 1838, there is the following statement, 

 by John Dalrymple, Esq., Lecturer on Surgery at Sydenham College. 



" Some few years back, in examining the organ of vision in a pike, 

 {Esox lucius,) I observed a small roundish grey colored body, about 

 the size of a hemp-seed, attached to the circumference of the lens; 

 and at the same time, certainly without due consideration, I designa- 

 ted it a muscle, principally from the fact, that I traced a nerve run- 

 ning from the posterior part of the eye, to this peculiar body. The 

 preparations then made I exhibited to some young American gentle- 

 men, attending the practice of the Moorfields Ophthalmic Hospital." 



" That the existence of this body is yet unknown in England, at 

 least, is I think borne out by the fact, that the learned Professor of 

 Comparative Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, Mr. Owen ; 

 and Mr. Yarrel, so well known by his beautiful work on the ichthy- 

 ology of Great Britain, were both unacquainted with the circumstance 

 when I mentioned it to them." 



" In a number of the American Journal of Science and Arts, will 

 be found a somewhat similar account of a muscle, discovered in the 

 eye of the streaked bass, {Perca nohilis vel Mitcliilli,) by Mr. W. Clay 

 Wallace, surgeon to the New York Institution for the Blind. This 

 gentleman did me the favor to send me over about twelve months 

 since, his paper published in that Journal. From the circumstance 

 of my not being aware of being personally acquainted with Mr. Wal- 

 lace, / cannot help suspecting that he is one of the Americans to 

 whom the observations made hy me were imparted at the Ophthalmic 

 Hospital some years ago." 



In justice to the young American gentlemen attending the practice 

 of the Moorfields Ophthalmic Hospital, I deny, says Dr. Wallace,* that 

 I ever saw or heard of Mr. Dalrymple, previous to the publication of 

 my discovery in 1835, or that I ever had, directly or indirectly, any 

 communication with any person who had seen, or even heard of him 

 or his imparted observations. Mr. Dalrymple published an elaborate 

 work on the eye, a copy of which was presented to me by a highly 

 valued friend in the year 1835. As there was nothing definite stated in 

 his work about the means by which the focus of the eye is regulated to 

 different distances, nor of the body attached to the crystalline lens, I 

 immediately forwarded him a copy of my paper. From this state- 

 ment it is obvious, that if I were disposed to deviate as far fi-om can- 

 dor and courtesy as Mr. Dalrymple has done, I might with far greater 



* In a letter to the Editors of this Journal. 



