Modern surgery, its progress and tendencies : being the introductory address delivered at University College at the opening of session 1873-74 / by John Eric Erichsen.

  • Erichsen, John Eric, 1818-1896.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Modern surgery, its progress and tendencies : being the introductory address delivered at University College at the opening of session 1873-74 / by John Eric Erichsen. 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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    ITS PROGRESS AND TENDENCIES. ♦ Gentlemen,—In no department of science has the intel- lectual activity of the present age wrought a g-reater change in a comparatively short space of time than in that of medicine. In a period that is within the ready memory of many, which to me seems but as yesterday, though it is separated from us by a span of years equal to the lifetime of a generation, the changes that have taken place in medicine in almost all that concerns its pathology, and in much that relates to its practice, have been so continuously great and their progress at times so rapid—indeed, so sudden and so unexpected—as to amount almost to a revolution. For truly it has been by no slow and progressive move- ment, but by sudden leaps and great bounds, that medicine has been carried forward in its onward march since that time when the microscope first became an instrument of daily necessity in the elucidation of its pathology, and anaesthetics of hourly employment in its practice. The study of the causes that have influenced in so signal and undoubtedly in so favourable a manner the onward progress of the science and art of medicine is full of interest—not as a subject of barren antiquarian research, but as one having an important and vital bearing on the