Historical study of medicine : concluding portion of an address to The Glasgow University Medico-Chirurgical Society, March 15, 1878 / by Professor Ferguson.

  • John Ferguson
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical study of medicine : concluding portion of an address to The Glasgow University Medico-Chirurgical Society, March 15, 1878 / by Professor Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    selves from the absorbing interest of what we are engaged with now, I know of no more profitable supplement to ordinary work than to get out of the present with all its self-assertion, its petty and irritating details, its muddiness and falsity, and try to realize what our favourite study was like in previous times ; to try to understand what our pre- decessors did, what difficulties they faced, what advances they made; how far we have advanced, but how very far we are from having arrived at the full truth and bearings of any one fact, how very cautious we should be in accepting current opinions as proved, especially when they are found to be popularly acceptable. I need not remind you that popular beliefs are regulated, as a general rule, not by reason, but by very different motives—by mere opposition to other views; by dislike to the holders of these views ; by admiration of the propounders of the views espoused ; by material, or political, or similar interests ; in short, by all sorts of motives, rather than by their own inherent and necessary truth. The one great lesson of history—so far as we know any- thing of history at all—seems to me to be this, that under very different physical and natural conditions, under very different degrees of civilization, under very different kinds of government, and in very different social surroundings human nature has remained practically the same. You will find proportionally as many credulous people at the present day as there were in the so-called dark acres though credulous about different things and in different ways. Says a somewhat sarcastic writer The 'ncut
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