Two lectures : I. Lectures, books, and practical teaching II. Clinical instruction : being introductory addresses delivered in the University of Glasgow, and in the Western Infirmary, session 1877-78 / by W.T. Gairdner.

  • Gairdner, Sir William Tennant, (1824-1907)
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Two lectures : I. Lectures, books, and practical teaching II. Clinical instruction : being introductory addresses delivered in the University of Glasgow, and in the Western Infirmary, session 1877-78 / by W.T. Gairdner. 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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    to the important questions which form the material of this course of lectures ? Partly, perhaps, from what you know of his social and professional position, and from his being set over you as professor. But chiefly, I think, and far more really, by your actually and personally seeing him at work in his department, and by, some of you at least, working along with him. Here we touch, I think, the very root of the matter. Syste- matic lectures, which are mere repetitions of a text-book, are not, indeed, wholly useless, but they never can rise above the usefulness of a text-book, any more than water can rise above its fountain-head. But systematic lectures that are informed by the spirit of a living man are valuable to you above a text- book, just in proportion as you have reason to have a living faith in that man, and in his ability to guide you aright. The territory of disease is, in a not inconsiderable part of it, an unknown territory; wholly so to some of you, largely so to all of you, to all of us. But there is a map of it, and we have to study it by the map. We cannot explore the whole of it for ourselves, nay, not even the millionth part of it, with the materials at our command. But the man who, being an actual explorer, and known to you as such, will sit down with you and discourse in a reasonable and perfectly frank manner about this unknown country ; who will tell you what he has himself seen, and what he knows only by hearsay; who will anticipate your difficulties, and inform you in some detail what you have to look for in following this or that river course, threading this or that impenetrable forest or jungle, crossing this or that mountain pass, will always have a value for you above that of the mere book or map. And if he can explore even a little bit along with you, from day to day, or can so instruct others that the facts of the lectures come to be illustrated, and the methods of exploration shown forth, under his guidance, then the advantage you will derive from his map, and his explanation of it, will be immensely and indefinitely increased. Now, gentlemen, for more than twenty years, in Edinburgh
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