The facts and laws of life : being an introductory lecture delivered at the opening of the Medical School of the Westminster Hospital, on October 3rd, 1859 / by J. Russell Reynolds.

  • Reynolds, John Russell, 1828-1896.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The facts and laws of life : being an introductory lecture delivered at the opening of the Medical School of the Westminster Hospital, on October 3rd, 1859 / by J. Russell Reynolds. 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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    take far other views than these, and see, in each sufferer wlio may come before you, that there is an individual history, as interesting, perhaps far more so than your own;—you must see that disease is something far more important, and far deeper than an aching head, a hurried breathing, or a flut- tering pulse; that disease is something much more serious than the mere interference with the mechanism of physical life; that the measure of its evil is, not the increased rapidity of pulse, not the daily wasting of the body, nor its numerical frequency in the bills of mortality, but the degree to which it so tells upon the mind, heart, will, and power of man that it prevents him from doing that work in this world which it has been given him to do. AVhatever pathological creed you may adopt as to the essence of disease, be assured that this is the true measure of its mag- nitude, the true standard of its evil. He, who after having toiled arduously and successfully for years, yet when having completed his threescore years and ten, amidst much Aveakness, distress, and pain, can still carry on the work that he was accomplishing, and, while on his death-bed direct others in their work, and aid them by dictating his own latest thoughts, is far less diseased, though his malady may invade whole organs, and may be of the most so-called malignant order, — yet for aU the highest ends of life he is less diseased than is the wretched and useless hypochondriac, who, with strong limbs and mighty appetite, is, and has been for thirty or forty years, a mere drag upon society and friends, a torment to himself, a useless, actless, complaining cipher, always fearing the evil, which at last comes, it may be, by so-called accident, and then the most acute pathologist, with micrology and chemistry to help him, can find no trace of malady in any one of his long-mallgncd, but, even at the last, most creditable organs. The mysterious material body which is your care, uuist be regarded as but a subservient part of a more mysterious whole; and you must never forget the higher elements in your eagerness to understand tlie lower. While the subject-matter of your study is vast, compli- cated, and attractive, it is such that you cannot know It in its essence. Nevertheless, you may learn its facts and laws, for these come within the range of our powers. We have to learn about life just that which we have to learn about heat, light, electricity, or gravitation. The nature or being of any one of tlicse we do not know ; but, by reason of their less