The modern advancement of practical medicine and surgery : an inaugural address to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh / by James Y. Simpson.

Date:
[1853?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The modern advancement of practical medicine and surgery : an inaugural address to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh / by James Y. Simpson. 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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    INAUGURAL ADDRESS. My first duty, in taking the Chair as President of the Medico-Chirurgical So- ciety, is a pleasant duty. For necessarily it consists in returning you my heart- felt thanks for the honour which you have bestowed upon me in electing me to this distinguished offi.ce. Believe me that I feel in no small degree flattered by this, as I have been in many previous instances, by the constant courtesy and unvarying kindness of you, my fellow practitioners, towards me. And any Scotch- man may, indeed, well feel proud at being elected to preside over this, at once the largest and the most active medical society in this country. On the utility of such Societies as the Medico-Chirurgical, it is quite unneces- sary to dwell. Their advantages have been described to you by some of your former Presidents in terms far more clear and emphatic than any I coidd hope to employ. And I believe that at the present time there exists but one opinion in relation to the fact, that the study of medicine, Hke the study of other depart- ments of practical science and art, has been vastly promoted by associations like our own. For all are ready to acknowledge, that the stimulus of mind upon mind, like the friction of iron upon iron, tends, in associations like this, to sharpen and strengthen all those intellectual faculties that are best calculated to promote our professional knowledge, and to develope the higher types of profes- sional character ; inasmuch as our mutual intercourse, criticisms, and discussions, form at once a school and an ordeal, teaching all of us constantly to become more zealous watchers of the medical phenomena occurring in our practice more careful in our observation and classification of these phenomena—and more rigid in drawing correct deductions and generalisations from them. None of us, I fear, can plead guiltless to the occasional influence of that be- setting sin—indolence; and all will further, I believe, willingly confess, that some- times its best cure has consisted in visits to such Societies as this, where the mere spectacle of other members actively at work has often stimulated us onwards to renewed efforts, and perhaps aroused within our breasts a commendable desire to imitate the professional industry and professional zeal of our neighbours. Few of us have ever on any occasion attended at this Society without hearing some new professional fact, or some new professional idea, calculated to arrest our attention, and destined perhaps to give us a new and increased interest