The oration in commemoration of the ninety-first anniversary of the Medical Society of London, delivered at Willis's Rooms, St. James's, on March 8, 1864 / by J.L.W. Thudichum.

  • Thudichum, J. L. W. (John Louis William), 1829-1901
Date:
[1864?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The oration in commemoration of the ninety-first anniversary of the Medical Society of London, delivered at Willis's Rooms, St. James's, on March 8, 1864 / by J.L.W. Thudichum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    colours. The society which now competes with our own is a colony of our own. The Medical and Chirurgical Society, with its charter, its transactions, its library, its overflowing funds, has troubles of its own. Before its longing eyes there floats the ambitious project of founding an institution like unto the academy of our Gallic neighbours. It clucked like a hen for its chicks when it called upon the special societies to unite their strength with its own. At last it poured out its own life-blood, and set committees to toil in the service of humanity. But it was neglected by the empire; and while three or four societies were comfortably housed in a royal palace, the embryo academy was left to pine over its unheeded ambition. Next there are two societies, rich in numbers, and fertile in products. Their objects are special, and not permitted to be exceeded in the progress of the work. The one which has for its objects the advancement of morbid anatomy, we housed and warmed in its early days, when it had nowhere to go to. Tlie other, which takes pleasure in easing the pangs of ma¬ ternity and in healing the inflictions of life upon the early stages of human existence, has not stood in any relation to ourselves ; but it has, like the other societies, our very best wishes for prosperity and success. And how could it be otherwise, when we bear in mind that the objects which they prosecute are only part of the objects of our own. That we are medical, chirurgical, pathological, obstetrical, and that we go yet beyond the combination of these programmes, and admit not only physiological subjects, but devote special occasions to the crowning work of all^medical science—that is, clinical medicine. Our programme therefore rests upon the broadest basis, and in exact proportion to it is the proba¬ bility of the continuance of our success. When special so¬ cieties will have exhausted them attractions, ours will continue ; when theirs will be done, it will constitute so much more ma¬ terial for our work. For our work is to uphold or to negotiate the unity of medical science, to be the stem of the tree of which specialities are branches. What better proof could I adduce of the effectual manner in which unnatural divisions are insensibly bridged over by the beneficent action of our meetings than what occurred at the opening meeting of the session now about to be con¬ cluded. On that occasion, you, Sir, came forward with samples from the rich store of your labours, thoughts, and experience, and showed us upon them how an elementary pathological process, a chemical disease of a single part, or of an entire organism, invisible and little felt in its beginning, might cause or afford the opportunity for the production of the most