Fallacies of the faculty, being the spirit of the chronothermal system. In a series of lectures / [Samuel Dickson].

  • Dickson, Samuel, 1802-1869
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fallacies of the faculty, being the spirit of the chronothermal system. In a series of lectures / [Samuel Dickson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    TO THE RISING GENERATION OF MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS. Gentlemen, At a time when the Legislature of your country, so far from protecting you in the honourable exercise of the profession of medicine, holds out a bribe to the most unscrupulous of mankind to become your rivals in the practice of itwhen the Schools which pretend to expound its prin¬ ciples are little better than collusive combinations of tradesmen, whose only object is your plunder ;—I cannot refrain from earnestly urging upon you the necessity for circumspection. In the present con¬ dition of society there is not a more thorny path than Medicine.-—■ Every avenue to its emoluments is crowded with competitors, exerting all their energies to outstrip each other in the race ;—and you have only to look around you to be satisfied that Success in this is less frequently the reward of patient Merit than of superior dexterity in the arts of intrigue, and the skilful appliance of corrupt and secret means. How long shall the power of Truth succumb to the pedantry and mockery of Profession ? How long will too credulous mankind continue to be deluded by collegiate and corporation craft ?—Arise !— awake from your slumber of confidence and security—examine for your¬ selves and cease to repose in the nothingness of a reputation, too often obtained by dishonest courses—or in grey hairs, not always redolent of wisdom. “ In a second infancy,” to use the words of an eloquent writer, “ what hope remains ?—reason grows weaker—the passions, the baser passions, the inferior sentiments of the heart—avarice, envy, self-conceit and obstinacy grow stronger, and the habits we then have accompany us to the grave.” To open your eyes to the fallacy and fatality of doctrines proceeding from quarters such as these, I have printed and published. May the pages of Truth and Nature be your only rudder and compass through¬ out your professional lives ! Your well-wisher, Charges Street, Piccadilly. 16th October, 1839. S. DICKSON. £5