An inaugural essay on genius and its diseases : submitted to the examination of Samuel Bard ... President, and the Trustees and professors of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of the State of New-York : and publicly defended for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, on the sixth day of April, 1819 / by Thomas Middleton Stuart.

  • Stuart, Thomas Middleton.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural essay on genius and its diseases : submitted to the examination of Samuel Bard ... President, and the Trustees and professors of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of the State of New-York : and publicly defended for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, on the sixth day of April, 1819 / by Thomas Middleton Stuart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    by disease—with minds retaining all their greatness, and uninjured amidst the ruins that surrounded them. We ask those from whom we may differ, if any instance can be adduced, in which the faculties of the mind have decayed, while the mind has been cultivated with the same assiduity in old age as formerly? In old age stimulants to exertion are wanting, there- fore the mental faculties are too often allowed to remain inactive ; then indeed they do decay; but we conclude with Cicero, manent ingenia senibus, modopermaneat studium et industrial It is time to turn to our proper subject. An inquiry into the nature of Genius is in- teresting, inasmuch as it is an inquiry concern- ing that which is productive of the greatest benefit, as well as of the greatest ill to mankind. Its effects are felt in every department of life ; whether it reside with the rustic, making him the counsellor of his hamlet; with the philoso- pher, placing him in the ^van of the march of science; or with the statesman, constituting him the shield of his country; whether it glow upon the lips of oratory, or encircle with its halo the visions of poetry. They are exhibit- ed in the prosperity of nations and in their ruin. It clothes its possessor with that mental