The touchstone of medical reform : in three letters, addressed to Sir Robert Harry Inglis, bart., M.P. / by Joseph Henry Green.

Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The touchstone of medical reform : in three letters, addressed to Sir Robert Harry Inglis, bart., M.P. / by Joseph Henry Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    and maintenance of a medical profession, the aim of those who regulate its aflPairs must be that of forming a learned class, united in the common object of the cultivation of that science, the application of which to the preservation and re-establishment of the health of the community, implies in the members of the profession, individually, the possession of technical knowledge and skill grounded on scientific insight, I proceed lastly, to the illustration of the scarcely less indispensable qualification of the professional man comprised in the character of a gentlemen, namely, that his conduct shall be the pledge and proof that he pursues his profession as a liberal science, and that in all his dealings with his patients, his professional brethren, and the community, he is ever guided by the principles of strict professional honour. It has been my aim to prove the vital connexion between the profession and the science corresponding thereto, so as to establish a balance of sight and insight, between individual skill a,nd the general principles which predetermine its application, and hence likewise the connexion between the profession and the universal sciences, between science itself, and the habit of sciential thought, in the unity of its spirit and essence. It is herein that we find the ground of a liberal education, common to the pro- fessions, and to the gentry of a country, of an educa- tion fitted to maintain the continued succession of a class of Viri liber ales, of gentlemen, of men imbued with the liberal sciences, of professional men, who in