Memoir of Robley Dunglison, M.D., Ll.D. : read before the College of Physicians at a special meeting held October 20, 1869 / by S. D. Gross.

  • Gross, Samuel D. (Samuel David), 1805-1884.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoir of Robley Dunglison, M.D., Ll.D. : read before the College of Physicians at a special meeting held October 20, 1869 / by S. D. Gross. 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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    under the signature of Philos. In 1822, he published in the Annals of Philosophy an article on the Phenomena of Vision produced by di- lating the Pupil by Belladonna ; and in the following year, in the London Quarterly, an elaborate paper on Malaria. During his residence at the University of Virginia he published, conjointly with George Long, Esq., An Introduction to the Study of Grecian and Roman Geography. He was one of the founders and editors of the Virginia Literary Museum and Journal of Belles-Lettres, Arts, and Sciences, a weekly periodical, issued at Charlottesville, in the interest of the University. Although it was conducted with marked ability, and had many readers, it was suspended at the end of the first year for the want, it would seem, of proper aid from the contributors. Dr. Dunglison furnished many of the leading and more elaborate articles, the material thus supplied amounting to several hundred pages. Most of the articles were of a non-professional character, and displayed unusual learning and research—as Fashions in Dress in England at the commencement of the Seventeenth Century; Ono- matopoeia ; Modern Improved System of Road-making ; Certain Cere- monies connected with the Dead; Anthropology; Blondel and Richard Lion-Heart; English Provincialisms ; Penitentiary Discipline ; Univer- sities ; Legends of the English Lakes ; Superstition ; Americanisms ; Early German Poetry; Etymological History ; Sanscrit Language; An- cient and Modern Gymnasia ; Cradle of Mankind ; English Orthoepy ; Canals of the Ancients, and Jeffersoniana. Quite a number of these papers were of an exhaustive character. This catalogue of his literary labours, which might, if space permitted, be much extended, shows that Dr.Dunglison was notonlya very copious writer, but a writer upon a great variety of subjects, both professional and miscel- laneous. Occasionally, says one of the most charming of modern authors, the life of the intellect seems to run itself out in one effort. All the fine juice of the vine flows into a single grape. It was not thus with Dunglison. Few men have been more gifted in this respect than he was. He wrote with immense rapidity, literally as if bis pen had been impelled by steam. It was nothing for him, in his riper years, to dash off from ten to fifteen pages of printed matter of a morning. It is reported of the late Mr. Raymond, of the New York Times, that he often wrote a dozen columns for that paper at a single sitting; and our great medical scholar frequently accomplished similar exploits. There was, however, this noteworthy difference between the two men that, while the pen of the one ran smoothly and uninterruptedly over his paper, that of the other was con- stantly arrested by the necessity of marginal references ; a labour which greatly impedes a writer's progress, and of which a public journalist is, in great degree, if not wholly, ignorant. Dunglison wrote not only rapidly but well, possessing singular facility of diction and power of utterance. His style was clear and classical, the construction of his sentences harmonious, the arrangement of his matter orderly and systematic. Always perfect master of his subject, and thoroughly versed in the art of composition, it-was no labour for him to adapt his language to the comprehension of the dullest intellect. It has been said that he was a mere compiler of other men's thoughts and language, and that such books as he produced might have been written by any one, even much less learned and industrious than himself. I cannot share this opinion. Originality is many-sided, and niny exhibit itself in a great variety of ways. Tims, for instance, a man may confine