Medicine in modern times, or, Discourses delivered at a meeting of the British Medical Association at Oxford / by Dr. Stokes [and others] ; with a report on mercury by Hughes Bennett.

Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine in modern times, or, Discourses delivered at a meeting of the British Medical Association at Oxford / by Dr. Stokes [and others] ; with a report on mercury by Hughes Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Oxford, the heart of England, whose history is that of the country, the free, the enlightened, the religious— the conqueror in the arts of peace and of war. Let me, before bidding you farewell, say a few words as to the future of this great Society—now the most numerous body working for the benefit of science in the world, and which will doubtless attain to larger di- mensions. So far, we have been an united body, which is to be attributed to our federal constitution, with an independent local action, and a representative and imperial executive. How long this strength-giving union may last no man can predict j nor, on the other hand, can any man say to what an amount of influence for good this Association may attain. But it is plain, that its durability and usefulness will depend on its being made the instrument for the public good, rather than the machinery to advance the immediate worldly interests of the profession. And every one of us must lay it to heart that a great issue rests within his hands. The man among us who by his unselfish labour adds one useful fact to the storehouse of medical knowledge, does more to advance its material interests than if he had spent a life in the pursuit of medical politics. Far be it from me to say that there are not great wrongs to be redressed. It is impossible, in any country, that evils of custom and of administration, private wrong, corporate shortcomings, hard dealings, unfair com- petition, and scanty remuneration for public and private services, should not occur. But these evils being ad- mitted, how are they to be lessened, if not removed ? Is it by public agitation and remonstrance, addressed
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