Cardiac disease / by T. Lauder Brunton.
- Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
- Date:
- 1897
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Cardiac disease / by T. Lauder Brunton. 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.
5/17
![CARDIAC DISEASE.! By T. Lauder Brunton, M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., Physician, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. II DO not think any poem has ever been more severely criticised, 1 or more frequently quoted, than Longfellow’s “ Psalm of Life.” ]Possibly the critic is right; the poem, nevertheless, does express tthe feelings of human hearts so well that almost no poem has tbeeii more frequently referred to. It has been quoted in the [past as it will be in the future, and I am going to take advantage lof it to-day. Part of one verse runs— “ And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like mufHed drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.” The first part of this verse has a great deal to do with the mnedical profession as well as the last, for it is— “ Art is long and time is fleeting,” aa sentence adopted by the Royal College of Physicians as their ijuotto, though taken by them from Hippocrates and not from ILongfellow. I do not suppose that there is any class of men who feel the t truth of the whole of that verse so much as medical men. They rrecognise only too well that “ Art is long and time is fleeting,” for 'while they are waiting for their art to improve, the time is going fast, and their patients are dying. I do not think that the public :.n general really appreciate how much feeling a medical man hhrows into the treatment of his patients, and how much his t'ailure to relieve them, or to cure them, takes out of him. Many a .man in general practice sees his patients frequently, and he learns ■>o know—often to love—them, so that when they die it is really a ■•ievere blow to him, almost as severe as to some of the patient’s '‘relatives, and for weeks afterwards that doctor may be suffering ' rom the loss of his patient. It is also a very severe trial to a medical man to be unable to give help when patients want it from ’ A clinical lecture delivered at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. 30 KD. MBD. £09—new SER.—VOL. II.—V.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22430209_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
