The Harveian oration : delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 29th, 1867 / by James Alderson.

  • Alderson, James, 1795-1882.
Date:
[1867]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Harveian oration : delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 29th, 1867 / by James Alderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    A STRANGE QUESTION. of medical philosophy. They will, I hope, have seen how far that light may bear upon the subject of the propagation of epidemics, prac- tically affecting all sanitary questions; how far, also, it encourages the hope of arriving eventually at the elucidation of all those func- tions of the human frame which remain but partially understood: how far, in short, it may disclose completely secrets which impede our perfect application of Harvey’s own discovery of the circulation. In order that our aims should not seem to soar too high, or our hopes to exceed the moderation of sober- minded students, we like to seize occasions such as this to display our method of proce- dure, and to make known what the labour of the nineteenth-century physician really is. It is not lone since our ears were startled by the question, Is the medical a scientific profession ?— a question as new as it is strange, and, I may be allowed to add, as insulting as it is new. Though we would not have mooted it, yet it does not mis- become us to reply. We say, then, Yes, emphatically yes. We are, indeed, of those