The address delivered at the opening of the classes of the Middlesex Hospital Medical College, session 1859-60 / by Mitchell Henry.

  • Henry, Mitchell, 1826-1910.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The address delivered at the opening of the classes of the Middlesex Hospital Medical College, session 1859-60 / by Mitchell Henry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ephemeral sentiment, but an abiding principle of your pro- fessional lives. To you, Gentlemen, whose acquaintance we make for the first time to-night, I have to promise every aid in study, every encouragement in exertion, that can spring from a heartfelt desire on our part to promote your best interests, and to render your attendance here truly profit- able. In addressing, then, a few observations especially to you, I shall perhaps on the one hand conform to the spirit in which these introductory addresses were first conceived, and on the other shall do what lies in my power to depre- cate that criticism to which I should justly render myself liable, if presumptuously, I were to attempt to teach my seniors, from whom I would so gladly learn. Be it then our task to night, as all of us students in the great laboratory of nature, to enquire how best we may hope to wring from her those medical secrets that she guards so jealously, and which the longest and most de- voted life of any amongst us, will prove too short even to admire. I seek for no novel topic upon which to occupy your time, but I would simply bring together those thoughts which naturally suggest themselves when we reflect that many amongst you are now just commencing the great business of your lives; the work, for which all your previous education has been but a preparation; that work which, if you rightly interpret the decrees of the Omnipotent, you came into the world to do. How can you do it best, with satisfaction to yourselves, and with lasting benefit to your fellow-men ? Now, Gentlemen, I can have no hesitation in telling you that in most, if not in all respects, the mental and moral qualifications with which you must enter upon your campaign, if you would end it triumphantly, are precisely