Address to the medical students of London : session 1850-1 / by J. Stevenson Bushnan.

  • John Stevenson Bushnan
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address to the medical students of London : session 1850-1 / by J. Stevenson Bushnan. 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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    student’s life under its moral aspect. And, first, it is of consequence that his place of residence should be judiciously chosen; and there cannot he a question that the best policy which can be adopted wTill be for him to board in a respectable private family, or, if possible, in the house of a physician or surgeon, who will superintend his studies, and whose society will always be instructive and bear upon the great object he has in contemplation. Lodgings, the best of them, are dreary solitudes, which the brightest fire on a winter’s night will hardly cheer up into anything like domestic comfort. “ I am never domesticated,” said Robert Southey, “in lodg- ings ; the hearth is unhallowed; the Penates do not abide there.” The student, with all his home associations fresh about him, feels this, and soon leaves his solitary fire-side to enjoy the gaieties of the theatre, the licentiousness of the tavern, or the society of new acquaintances, with whom he is tempted to smoke cigars, drink punch, and tell merry stories—“pleasant, but wrong”—until the hour arrives when Hamlet’s ghost, in the shape of a policeman in blue armour, “ sniffs the morning air,” and meeting him in the deserted street, perhaps “ marshals him the way that he should go.” Habits of irregularity and intemperance are hereby engendered which are incon^patible with study, and which never would occur or be tolerated in a private family. But however important for his personal com- fort the place of his abode may be, the choice of his new com- panions is of infinitely greater consequence to his future happi- ness, for this is the initiatory step which will govern for good or for evil all his future movements. The purest stream may become contaminated by running through poisoned ores. Vicious habits are more contagious than the leprosy of old, and disfigure the mind, more than that Eastern plague ever did the body. Once infected, there is no escape. Beware, therefore, of new acquaintances. The lustre of a young man’s honour soon becomes tarnished in an impure atmosphere. Use caution and discretion in the selection of your friends, and cultivate an intimacy only with those who are of studious and temperate habits, and who can, directly or indirectly, in conversation
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