The Hunterian Oration, 1875 / by F. Le Gros Clark.

  • Frederick le Gros Clark
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Hunterian Oration, 1875 / by F. Le Gros Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    the elements which are essential or prejudicial to health ; of the source of heat. Yet how momentous have the discoveries in these directions become to the physician ; and how important must the study of the perverted or arrested chemistry of the living frame prove in the treatment of disease. The attention which has been bestowed upon the varying temperature of the body has already been found of incalculable value in diagnosis. May not similar observations in relation to its electric condition be no less significant in the same direction, and even applicable therapeutically in surgery as well as medicine, when we possess available means of testing and employing it ? Yet, with so much in our favour, the prejudices and the obstacles to the diffusion of practical knowledge which Hunter had to combat are not yet extinct ; and I fear that our teach- ing is not entirely blameless in this matter. Perhaps I should rather say, the way in which our students learn their profes- sion ; for I freely and thankfully admit the beneficial change which has been wrought of late years in the character of our teaching generally, and in the moral tone and preliminary education of our students. Yet our system of instruction is not perfect—indeed, it may be questioned whether our efforts to make it so have not overreached their mark, in the invention of facilities for learning, and to the prejudice of the student’s best interests in after life. It seems as if the hurried, the competitive life we are now leading were uncongenial to reflection. Be that as it may, it is impossible for those, whose duty it is to test the attainments of our students, to ignore the fact that knowledge is acquired too often without reflec- tion ; that even the more intelligent are sometimes satisfied to store their minds with facts, without reasoning or seeking for an explanation of them. I am jealous of the artistic illustrations which are scattered broadcast through our ana- tomical and surgical text-books, for I fear that their abuse too often lures the student into the fatal error of believing that he can thus acquire that which should be learned only
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