Some landmarks in the progress of medical science : being the annual oration at the Medical Society of London : delivered on May 20th, 1901 / by F. Richardson Cross.

  • Cross, Francis Richardson, 1848-1931.
Date:
[1901?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Some landmarks in the progress of medical science : being the annual oration at the Medical Society of London : delivered on May 20th, 1901 / by F. Richardson Cross. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Australia, in India and South Africa) it is our Sovereign who is the living sjmibol of the unity of the whole to-day. Eeigning to the end without any loss of interest or prestige, she will con- tinue to live in the undying reverence and affection of her former subjects. Gentlemen, we have been living in an age crowded with great achievements in art, literature, and science, and have experienced innumerable applications of them in all departments of human industry; among the gains of the last century were railways, steamships, gas, the electric light, telegraphy, the telephone, the phonograph, photography, and spectrum analysis, while ansesthetics, antiseptics, and the Eontgen rays are indications of a conterminous advance in the science of surgery. The enormous gains in know- ledge and the progressive great development in practice of all branches of the healing art, and of its associate sciences, were admirably set forth by many writers at the time of Queen Victoria’s jubilee. In seeking for the subject-matter of an address suitable for such an occasion as the present, I have been much interested to see, by means of a list kindly lent me by Mr. Hall, on what themes former Orators may have spoken. Many have passed in review various phases in the history of our Society itself; others have dealt with the principles that regulate medical knowledge or practice, and the inquiries that have led to their development. “ The Vocation of the Medical Scholar ” and “ The Medical Profession in its relation to Society and the State ” have been ably discussed. Some of the Orations have been of a philosophic character, others have been devoted to the consideration of special diseases. All kinds of subjects have been chosen by my distinguished predecessors. The very width of choice open to us renders selection none the easier. To look back twice as far in time as the Victorian era, we see, in 1773, 90 doctors—physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries equally represented—meeting at Lettsom’s house to found the Medical Society of London. We trace the history of the Society through its migrations thence to Crane Court (1776), to Bolt Court, Fleet Street (1788), on to George Street, Hanover Square, which was taken in 1850. (By that time the Medical Society had somewhat degenerated, but it then gained new power through an amalgamation