Imagination and idealism in the medical sciences / [by] Christian A. Herter ... An address delivered to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, Sept. 23, 1909, at the opening of the medical school.

Herter, Christian Archibald, 1865-1910.

Date:: [1910?]

Credit: Imagination and idealism in the medical sciences / [by] Christian A. Herter ... An address delivered to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, Sept. 23, 1909, at the opening of the medical school. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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$studies on vortex motion, on hydrodynamics, on electro- dynamics, on dynamics, on meteorological physics. He broadens chemical theory by the influence of his vortex motion hypothesis and, in a somewhat incidental way, brings new theoretical conceptions into the realm of pure mathematics. As students of the psychical forces that have fertilized modern medicine it is interesting for us to note that Helmholtz disclaimed any intention to be practical in his work. If the themes that happened to absorb his attention led to practical and humanely useful results, he was pleased; but he seldom pursued a practical aim simply because of its utility. He chose his themes because they promised to be intellectually satisfying, giving little heed to the nature of the prob- able outcome. He framed his experiments so that Xature would have to answer Yes or No to his questions, thus furnishing him with definite results. The story of the invention of the ophthalmoscope illustrates the mental processes of Helmholtz in working out an idea. He did not set out to devise an instrument for studying the retina and the ocular refraction, but as he proceeded these important possibilities ripened into definite objects. He says: I was endeavoring to explain to my pupils the emission of reflected light from the eye, a discovery made by Brlicke, who would have invented the ophthalmoscope had he only asked himself how an optical image is formed by the light returning from the eye. In his research it was not necessary to ask it, but had he asked it, he was just the man to answer it as quickly at I did, and to invent the instrument. I turned the problem over and over t<> ascertain the simplest way in which to demonstrate the phenomenon to my students. It was also 10$