Medicine & the allied sciences : an address delivered before the Medical Society of King's College, London, on the 13th of October, 1870 / by E. Buchanan Baxter.

  • Baxter, E. Buchanan (Evan Buchanan), 1844-1885.
Date:
[1870?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine & the allied sciences : an address delivered before the Medical Society of King's College, London, on the 13th of October, 1870 / by E. Buchanan Baxter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cution of the theoretical branches of medicine ; for patho¬ logical and necroscopic inquiry, and the cultivation of those collateral sciences whose progress reacts so immediately on that of ours. s It may be urged by some,, that the intellectual habits engendered by the cultivation of medicine in its scientific aspect, are antagonistic to those which are required for its practical applications. To a very small extent this may be true ; but only to a very small extent. It may seem at first sight otherwise to those who look upon the object of science as the acquisition of absolute truth, and who contrast her splendid and far-reaching generalisations with the intellec¬ tually meagre and empirical results of clinical inquiry. But a deeper scrutiny serves to shew that different as may be the methods, the results are of nearly equal absolute worth. “ Science/’ as Professor Huxley has said in his metallic way, is the domain of orderly mystery.” And practical medicine, it may be added, is the domain of mystery which is not orderly. Of the real nature of things we are ignorant, and no seeking on our part is ever likely to penetrate this awful veil. We can but watch phenomena within phenomena, and so arrive at a few generalisations, which we call laws, and which help us to see into the immediate future. Up to this point, we have been considering our anarchical ct system” in its relations to our society, as a means of acquir¬ ing a certain knowledge, certain special powers : and we have seen how far short it falls even of this relatively humble end. But to us it is much more than this. To nearly all of us it is an educational instrument in the widest sense,—our only chance of culture. To nearly all of us, medicine is not only an occupation, but a life. And in the recognition of this,— that our occupation and our life are one, lies at once the acknowledgment of our shortcomings, and a ground of hope for farther action. Stronger motives than those of mere ambition or curiosity stimulate us to exertions, which, but for them, would seem too hard. The mastery over the past is of no avail, save inasmuch as it gives us a key to the future. We should be like those early voyagers, who, starting from their well-known home in some Northern island, were drawn ever onward by the vision of some mythic Eldorado or Foun¬ tain of perpetual Youth: this indeed they never reached; but in their passage through warmer seas, into the atmosphere of the unknown, they were not left without reward ; for every morning brought with it new horizons, every night, new stars.
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