Introductory address delivered at the opening of the Medical School, Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, November 6th, 1850 / by George Wilson.

  • Wilson, George, 1818-1859.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory address delivered at the opening of the Medical School, Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, November 6th, 1850 / by George Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    literally, hand-workers. So, also, it teaches you a science of anatomy, full of elaborate details concerning form and structure ; and it simultaneously gives you a scalpel, and bids you learn for yourselves an art of anatomy on the dead body. It requires of you a knowledge of the science of chemistry, with its atomic theories, electrical hypotheses, doctrines of compound radicals, and the like ; and it also puts into your hands a specimen of blood, and some pieces of apparatus, and says, Tell me if there be sugar or urea there ? I need not multiply examples. It would be easy to do so; but it is unneces- sary. I have purposely chosen those given from the earlier studies which engage the student, because it is needless to proclaim that surgery, practice of physic, and midwifery, involve, on the one hand, the recognition of very refined and subtle theories which constitute their science; and on the other profess, as arts founded on experience, to furnish the practitioner with methods and instruments of cure, which, within peculiar limits, may be called certain; for true science, and honest art, would both object to the term infallible. The course of study, then, through which you will pass, in obeying the requirements of any of our surgical or medical examining bodies (which differ from each other as to what they demand, only so far as comparatively unim- portant details are concerned), is one which may be pronounced excellent, in proportion as it exhibits the peculiarity referred to. A student of medicine has this advantage over the students of most, if not all, other professions, that he is as carefully trained to the law as to the fact, to the theory as to the practice, to the reason as to the rule, in every branch of his calling. He undergoes, moreover, a training which, if wisely submitted to, secures a more equable and systematic education and cultivation of his nature, than the training of any other calling accomplishes. The study of the law will quicken certain intellectual faculties, more than the study of medicine will. The study of theology will cultivate the moral sympathies, in a way our studies cannot. The cultivation of the fine arts, music, painting, poetry, will refine the taste, and educate the festhetical feeling or sense of beauty, to a degree unattainable by those who are only our votaries. The practice of the mechanical arts, will give the eye and the hand a precision, a delicacy, and a strength, which our exercises will not develop. Law, however, and theology, as well as art, whether sesthetical or economic, as studied professionally, cultivate but parts of a man. Medicine can claim to herself that she (though not, certainly in equal degree) educates simultaneously the intellect and the senses ; the head, the heart, and the hand ; nay, I may say, the whole body and the whole soul.1 1 I am anxious to guard against seeming to recommend those who seek to edu- cate themselves in the full sense of that word, to be content with the round of study which medicine prescribes. It is plainly desirable, for example, to take one case, that psychology, which can throw so much light on mental diseases, should be studied by members of our profession, who have opportunity, capacity, and relish for follow- ing that branch of knowledge, to a greater extent than is required by any medical examining board. It is still more desirable, that the morality of the profession should be based upon Christianity, which has its own great Text Book profitable for the members of all callings. Medicine does not completely educate a man, either intellectually or morally, not to say aesthetically. Nevertheless, as discussing so many of the physical sciences, besides communicating some information concerning psychology, and affording great exercise in the use of logic, as well as opportunity for acquiring skill in the practice of various arts, it simultaneously disciplines and informs the intellect and the external senses, to a greater extent than the merely imperative studies of any other profession do ; whilst the solemnising effect of the scenes to which it summons the student, and the appeals to his integrity, sense of responsibility, benevolence, and sympathy, which it constantly makes, furnish a most wholesome moral atmosphere, in which his character may expand. Even a student, accordingly, who passes at once from the schoolroom to the hospital, and from the examining board to a field of practice, has undergone, though limited to the narrow- est circle of imperative study, an amount of instruction and training, intellectual and moral, which the medium curriculum of no other calling can supply.