Remarks on the conduct and duties of young physicians : addressed to the Edinburgh medical graduates of 1842 ... / by James Y. Simpson.

Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the conduct and duties of young physicians : addressed to the Edinburgh medical graduates of 1842 ... / 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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    The fetters of academic discipline are now—and for ever—to be struck from you. You are about to pass from the closet of the student into the busy and bustling scenes of active life. The great city of the world is already throwing open her gates to receive you. - Through that city you must now pass, “ whe- ther through its darkness or its splendour,—its pro- fligacy or its virtue,—its misery or its happiness ; and in it, all the honours of time and of immortality are to be gained or to be lost.” The avenues to its temples of fame and happiness are as open to you now, as they ever were to any of your predecessors. The approaches to them are, as heretofore, beset on either side by ten thousand temptations. Pursue earnestly and undeviatingly the direct course of Christian and professional duty, and then you need fear not. But tremble if you allow yourself to be drawn aside from it at any one point. Temptations that may at first lure you from your path with the “ gentle hand of a grace or a pleasure,” will—if yield- ed to—soon hold you with the iron grasp of a giant. Your future career is a matter of your own selection; and will be regulated by the conduct which you choose to follow. That career may be one of happi- ness or of self-regret,—one of honour or of obscurity, —one of wealth or of poverty. During it the pre- sent fond hopes of professional fame and foitune that breathe in the breasts of all of you, may be won or iost5—may be fulfilled or falsified,—may be nobly realized or ignobly ruined. The one or other result is, I repeat, not a matter of chance, but a matter of choice on your part. Your diligence and industry for the next few years