Medical education : being a lecture delivered at King's College, London / by J. Forbes Royle.
- John Forbes Royle
- Date:
- MDCCCXLV [1845]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Medical education : being a lecture delivered at King's College, London / by J. Forbes Royle. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![especially of those, who have not had the advantage of a good general education. Medicine was not less suc- cessfully cultivated formerly, than it has been since, until very recent times. Then Science found its chief supporters among the Medical Profession, and the Royal Society, many of its original Founders. There, they can now scarcely gain admittance, unless they bring some other credentials besides their Profession. This has perhaps been caused by Physicians, (who were originally so called, because they were Naturalists,) though still proud of the name, having become ashamed of the calling. This again, has probably arisen from an undue, I had almost said, base subservience in the Profession generally, to] the prejudices of a public ignorant of science. But we may observe in that public, the dawn of a growing interest in scientific pursuits, in which, without doubt, will be included, as in the times of ancient Philosophers, some knowledge of the structure and functions of the body. When the light is a little more diffused, men will not be slow to perceive, that a Profession, based as it is on so many Sciences, cannot but be Scientific itself; and that, there- fore, those only who study it as a Science, are qualified to practise it successfully as an Art. Fortified by a scientific education, and acquainted with the modes of investigation in the exact sciences, you will be enabled to investigate the causes of disease in a philosophical manner, and make your treatment a legitimate deduction from the principles of your science, modified, however, by the results of experience. You will thus avoid rashness on the one hand, and timidity](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21301864_0062.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)