I. In memoriam, Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L. II. Sturges lecture for 1897 / by George Cowell.

  • Cowell, George, 1836-1927.
Date:
[1897]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: I. In memoriam, Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L. II. Sturges lecture for 1897 / by George Cowell. 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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    1 atliology, and Practical Medicine ”; and by Professor Lannelongue, of Paris, on “ The Treatment of Surgical Tuberculoses in General.” All that was most interesting in the various sections of the Congress has already been published in the medical journals, but you will expect me to give you some idea of Moscow, which, next to Pome, is the most interesting city in Europe. The peasants call it “Our Holy Mother Moscow,” for it possesses 9 cathedrals, 4S4 churches, and 22 monasteries, and is 24 miles in circumference. As nearly all these churches have domes or minarets or spires, overlaid with metal richly gilded or bronzed, or coloured with green or blue or red, the bright colours and the gold and bronze glisten in the sun. We had bright sun all the time that we were in Moscow, as it was intensely dry and hot, the temperature being every day 103° in the shade. These bright and coloured domes then, con- trasting as they do with the white walls and buildings around them, give to the city a most eastern and picturesque appear- ance. Its walls and gates, and buildings and customs, are full of interest, and still bear the impress of the Tartar occupation of the city, notwithstanding the space of time that has elapsed and the great fire which destroyed so much of Moscow at the time of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. The central attraction of Moscow is its Kremlin or fortress, which is a city in itself, and is surrounded by high walls of brick, with numerous picturesque towers dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, many of them being the work of Italian architects. There are many gates to the Kremlin, all of which are more or less historically interesting or sacred. The principal entrance is called the Spaskoi Vorsta, the Gate of the Redeemer, and was built at the end of the 15tli cen- tury. It is of a red colour, with green spire and pinnacles. Over this gate is the famous picture or Icon of the Re- deemer of Smolensk. It is one of the three holy pictures of Moscow, and it is visited by upwards of 10,000 persons every day. It has become famous from the legends that are told, and implicitly believed by the people, of the way in which it has always defended itself miraculously from foreign in- vaders. The Tartars thought its frame was of gold, and tried to remove it, but every ladder they used broke in the
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