Inaugural address delivered before the Clinical Society of London, January 23rd, 1891 / by Sir Dyce Duckworth.

Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inaugural address delivered before the Clinical Society of London, January 23rd, 1891 / by Sir Dyce Duckworth. 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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    the essence of this Society that it recognizes and encourages the practice of medicine and of surgery as arts, and I hold it to be more than ever important at this time not to lose sight of the fact that practising members of our profession are, or ought to be, artists. Though we seek at every step a scientific basis for our practice, we are not ashamed to confess that the exigencies of human frailties and suffering compel us occasionally, nay, frequently, to make therapeutic excursions which are alone justifiable as honest methods of empiricism, contrived for the help and comfort of our patients. It is not too much to affirm, even in this last decade of the century, that if any one seeking to practise medicine were to deny this position, or to refuse to act in accordance with it, he could not do his duty properly as a physician, or bring relief to the bedside. Hence we meet in this Society to cultivate the best methods of our clinical art, to quicken our powers of diagnosis, to store our minds with facts relating to the phases of diseases, and to learn how better to apply reme- dial measures. The task is pleasant and hopeful, though one must ever feel the smallness and imperfection of one's knowledge under the most favourable circumstances. If it be true, as Peter Mere Latham said, that great experience is not all experience, it is no less true that he is the best practitioner who sees most of disease, and has most to do in trying to alleviate it. It cannot be denied that we now carry on our work in a manner very different from that pursued by our fore- fathers. Not only are the individual practitioners of medi- cine and surgery greatly changed by reason of more widespread education and exact knowledge, but there has grown along with this, on the part of the general public, a tendency to peer into matters scientific and medical, which might possibly be expected to widen its