Essays on surgical subjects / by Sir Berkeley Moynihan.

  • Berkeley Moynihan
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on surgical subjects / by Sir Berkeley Moynihan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    his gospel. For this great omission there were perhaps some compensations. There were few clinics in any part of the world in which something taught by Murphy or inspired by him had not crept in and found a home. His name was often on the lips of surgeons in all lands. His views impressed themselves on men’s minds. His methods were closely copied. But when Murphy laid his mantle down there was no one ready and worthy to take it up. When we remember how the pupils of Turner, of Edin¬ burgh, became professors in most of the chairs of anatomy throughout the British Empire, how many men Billroth trained to occupy with great distinction the chairs of surgery in eastern Europe, how Welch is the happy parent of a great school of pathologists trained by him, inspired by him, and looking to him with reverent affection, we cannot refrain from regret that some of the acolytes of Murphy did not grow to the stature of High Priests. Year by year Murphy grew in intellectual power and in the dominion he exercised over the minds of men. A problem took on a different aspect if Murphy were engaged in it. He touched the common currency of surgical thought and changed it into gold. For no effort of his was meaningless or sterile and all the powers of his mind and of his frail body were spent ungrudgingly in all his work. His well stocked library, and all new literature were searched for him, and dispatches made for his assimilation. He worked as all great men should work, with a clean desk. His great powers were used for worthy purposes and in due season, nothing was wasted in mere hack work, for all that could be equally well done by others was left for them to do. Yet all his life he over¬ worked. He had an inner restless spirit which drove him at full speed. He must work, and while at work
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