Biographical notice of the late Doctor Baillie, delivered ... to the students of anatomy and surgery, in Great Windmill Street ... 1823 / [Sir Charles Bell].

  • Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842
Date:
[1823]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Biographical notice of the late Doctor Baillie, delivered ... to the students of anatomy and surgery, in Great Windmill Street ... 1823 / [Sir Charles Bell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in the happiness and the eminence of his original country. And may the world forget him who forgets this first demand on his gra- titudoj and best excitement to honourable exertions ! But there was a native sense and strength of mind which distinguished him, and more than compensated for the want of the polish and purity of English pronunciation. “ He possessed the valuable talent of making an abstruse and difficult subject plain : Jiis prelections were remarkable for that lucid order and clearness of expression which proceed from a perfect conception of the subject; and he never permitted any vanity of display to turn him from his great object of conveying information in the simplest and most intelligible way, and so as to be most useful to his pupils. “ It is to be regretted that his associate in the lectureship made his duties here unpleasant to him: and I have his own authority for saying that, but for this, he would have continued to lecture some years longer. That Dr. Baillie ceased to lecture at a time when his opinions became every day more valuable, is the less to be regretted when we consider how he continued afterwards to occupy himself. His first work, on Morbid Anatomy, was, like every thing he did, modest and unpretending; but it was not on that account the less valued. A perfect knowdedge of his subject, acquired in the midst of the fullest opportunities, enabled him to compress into a small volume more accurate and more useful information than will be found in the works of Bonetus, Morgagni, and Lieutaud. This work con- sisted at first of a plain statement of facts,—^the description of the appearances presented on dissection, or what could be preserved and exhibited; and he afterwards added the narration of symptoms cor- responding with the morbid appearances. This was an attempt of greater difficulty, which will require the experience of successive lives to perfect. “ His next work was the Illustration of Morbid Anatomy, by a series of splendid engravings ; creditable at once to his own taste and B 2