Introductory address : delivered before the class of the Medical College of So. Ca., November 1st, 1851 / by Myddleton Michel.

  • Michel, Middleton, 1822-1894.
Date:
[1851?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory address : delivered before the class of the Medical College of So. Ca., November 1st, 1851 / by Myddleton Michel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    tricate arrangement he unfolded with extraordinary sagacity. In the anatomy and physiology of the veg- etable world we find the labors of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, and to their discoveries but little was ad- ded either by Celsus or Pliny. By such then were challenged the scholastic pres- criptions of the age. Such again were those whom no philosophy could dissuade from pursuing what was useful, and who, ready to promulgate the decisions of truth, were contented to be stigmatized as profitless inquirers if they could one day be regarded as worthy benefactors. During the middle ages when learning slumbered, or was only agitated by the deceptions of imagina- tion which disturbed the darkness of night, nothing was observed and therefore nothing was recorded. But among the nations of the east, who consumed much time in* academic disputations, the spirit of re- search was not entirely disregarded. Here it must be remembered chemistry was cultivated and from here it grew into strength. In the infancy of another civilization when the restoration of letters resuscitated the oracular authori- ty of the ancients, Paracelsus towered among the ap- proaching ruins of the Platonic and Galenic empires, so soon to be invaded by Ramus and conquered by Bacon. Now with the magic of his Archeus, and the play of planetary bodies on the one hand, and the au- thority of chemistry on the other Paracelsus affecting supreme command and scornful of restraint endeav- ored to resolve all animal functions and organic op-