A lecture on the importance of a knowledge of physical science to the members of all professions : being introductory to a course of lectures on the application of acoustics to the discovery of chest diseases, delivered to members of the medical profession, and of the Philosophical Institution, at Birmingham / by Peyton Blakiston.

  • Blakiston, Peyton, 1801-1878.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the importance of a knowledge of physical science to the members of all professions : being introductory to a course of lectures on the application of acoustics to the discovery of chest diseases, delivered to members of the medical profession, and of the Philosophical Institution, at Birmingham / by Peyton Blakiston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    strive to assist tliose who have begun this work, and borrowing light from them, I would endeavour to increase the points of illumination, and thus bear my humble part in dispelling the darkness that has too long enveloped our systems of education. I shall address myself principally to Students, in the hope of exciting in them a desire after scientific attainment, while they have time to devote to its acquirement; endeavouring to convince them of its importance to them, as regards both their future character and prospects; and also because this course may in some sort be consi- dered as supplementary to that on Clinical Medicine, which, although interrupted by the preparation of the experiments required for the illustration of the com'se of Lectures on Chemistry, that I delivered lately to the Members of the Philosophical and Mecha- nics' Institution, I purpose resuming next year. Indeed the path of clinical instruction is one in which I consider it a duty to persevere, and with which no private engagements should be allowed to inter- fere ; for the higher professional men rise, and the more extended their field of observation, the more imperiously are they called upon to devote some portion of their time to the improvement and instruc- tion of the j unior members of their profession, by imparting to them the results of their daily increasing experience. Few pleasures can be greater than those afforded by thus unfolding the enlarged views which are continually openiug upon them, and seizing the opportunities offered by such intercourse with their pupils, to encourage in them those feelings of kindliness, honour, and liberality, which they would wish to see possessed by those who may one day be placed side by side with them, in the practice of their profession. The beneficial effect produced on the minds of such teachers is truly astonishing; they are constantly stimulated to acute and accurate observation, they are led to ponder over the different cases which present them- selves in the course of their practice, and to compare them with each other, watching closely every link in the chain of reasoning and in the deductions from them; and thus not unfrequently, un- connected and floating ideas will become fixed and certain principles. Sometimes they are led into a field of enquiry beyond that to which they had originally intended to direct their researches, an instance of which iias occurred in the preparation of these Lectures, out of which has