Valedictory address by John Gray M'Kendrick, Professor of Physiology in the University of Glasgow at the close of the summer session of 1906.

  • McKendrick, John G. (John Gray), 1841-1926.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Valedictory address by John Gray M'Kendrick, Professor of Physiology in the University of Glasgow at the close of the summer session of 1906. 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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    produce by hook or crook what is regarded as original work. The result is that much incomplete work is published, and hence there is far too much controversy even as to statements of fact. It would be well if more restraint were exercised in this matter. Work of a substantial character cannot be forced by an itching after results, nor even by grants of money. Time is needed for all solid work, and you can no more create by artificial means a researcher than you can make a poet. Great researchers are born not made; and what we should aim at is to give them, when we discover them, every facility for doing their work. Science, and I include physiological science, more especially in relation to the chemistry of vital processes, would, I believe, be benefited if the workers scrutinized and revised their work, and published nothing for the next five years. Such, gentlemen, is, in my humble opinion, the future of physiology. There is another subject in which I have for many years been deeply interested, that of Experi- mental Psychology, or, as I would express it, the physical examination of all those physiological pro- cesses that lie at the basis of our mental life. Since the days of Fechner this subject has become an important branch of science. It is the link between physiology and psychology, and from the latter we pass into mental philosophy. All graduates in mental science should have a thorough O O grounding in experimental psychology so that they mav understand something of the wonderful / O
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