Lecture, introductory to a course of clinical medicine / [Samuel Wright].

  • Wright, Samuel
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lecture, introductory to a course of clinical medicine / [Samuel Wright]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    aided efforts would not enable you to compass. Knowledge is ever progressive, and in nothing more so than in medi¬ cine. Every day brings us fresh materials, whereby we may become better practitioners. That these inestimable gifts may never be lost to you, make it a part of your duty to be read up to the latest improvements of your profession. As discoveries arise, be amongst the first to seize them, and if available, make them your own in practice. But you may do more than this. Yourselves may become discoverers, in the course of your investigations, and be honoured in the opportunity of adding to the sum of our professional knowledge. If it be true, as an old writer tells us, that the most superb and lasting monument ever con¬ secrated to beauty, was that to which every lover carried a tribute; it is equally true, that the science of medicine will best rise to dignity and accuracy, by its every disciple feel¬ ing interested in its advancement. Before concluding, gentlemen, let me impress your minds with the seriousness of the obligations to which you are about to commit yourselves. There is no nobler profession than ours, and there is none more responsible. There is something awful in having to take charge of human life: it tells us that we have both a moral and a medical duty to perform to our patients. Never look to the worldly condition of individuals, to know how much professional attention you are to pay them, and what claims they are to have upon your sympathy with their sufferings, and anxiety for their welfare. Circum¬ stances may have made them rich or poor—but remember, that, Nature has made them men ! Take a large and a liberal view of what humanity is, and you will find that in the im¬ mortal part of it, the veriest beggar that shivers in the street, is the equal of the proudest monarch that wears a crown.