In memoriam : Edmund A. Parkes / [Sir William Aitken].

  • William Aitken
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: In memoriam : Edmund A. Parkes / [Sir William Aitken]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In his scheme and method of tuition here and at University College, he clearly shewed the second great quality he possessed— namely, “ that directness of aim ” which characterised him. He seemed to have set a great goal before himself which he aimed at reaching, so that steadfastness of purpose to reach this goal was ever before him, and sustained him to the end. With such stead- fastness of purpose and directness of aim his success as a teacher and a lecturer was real and genuine, mainly by his resolution and determi- nation to succeed, and his charming manner of tuition. He did not multiply nor change the objects of his life, although circumstances led him to give up, sixteen years ago, the arduous practice of a London physician, to become the first Professor of Hygiene in this School, and the most successful cultivator and teacher of Preventive Medicine who has yet lived. In fact, he has made the science of Hygiene what it now is; and in teaching its practical application, especially in matters pertaining to the sanitary condition of the army at home and abroad, and in making the science generally available for the public good, he reduced it to order and system from the great con- fusion in which it had hitherto been, and organised that course of practical tuition here which exists nowhere else, and which his able coadjutor, Dr. De Chaumont, will now carry you through. Dr. Parkes’ great work on Practical Hygiene will be your text-book— itself a monument of industry, of exact results, and of practical usefulness. When the history of Hygiene and of Sanitary Science comes to be written, Parkes’ name will stand out as one who was born for the Occasion and was equal to it. Fortunately we know not what is in the future, but it is difficult to realise that such great changes will take place in the next twenty-five years as have taken place in the past quarter of a century. Great, very great changes there no doubt will be in the course of events; and so far as sanitary progress is concerned, such changes, I dare to say, will be found to have their starting point from the writings, the teachings, and now the death of Parkes. Already the transitions in science, the great facilities of mental and personal intercommunication, the uprooting of old ideas, and the establishment of more stable principles, based on more accurate knowledge, have been unparalleled, except at the time of the Reformation. At that time principles were seen to develop themselves which began to operate at a later day; and just as the bough, when it breaks from the parent stem, bears to the earth its living blossoms, which, germinating in their turn, produce trees whose branches overshadow the land, so it is with the present reformation which has been awakened by the systematic teachings of Sanitary Science. The whole civilised world,
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