The Hunterian oration : delivered February 14, 1852 / by James Luke.

  • James Luke
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Hunterian oration : delivered February 14, 1852 / by James Luke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and so fully confirmed by internal evidence, that we have not any reason to doubt the fact. The direct inferences to be drawn from this circum- stance may truly be supposed to have an injmious ten- dency, in diminishing the force of argmnents urged in favour of preliminary education. Por when high and brilUant positions are demonstrated to be attainable, and results are produced and recognized as constituting almost a new era of the profession, almost without any preliminary education, it may naturally and not iUogi- cally be concluded, that the influence of scholastic education upon the cultivation of Medicine as a science, cannot be very important. It may therefore be advi- sable to say a few words upon tliis subject. To attribute this educational defect in Hunter to the too common indolence of youth, appears to be a heresy which the whole tenor of his after-life forbids; and to say that the constituted originahty of his mind indisposed him to, and enabled him to dispense with, those ancillary means to professional study, however complimentary to its power and energy, furnishes but an insufficient answer to the argument derived from the fact of his deficiency. Indeed, to endeavour to explain or excuse the fact in any way, would be unattended by any useful result. That an originahty of conception and an independence of thought, which formed so conspicuous a portion of Hunter's merit, enabled him to overcome difficulties insurmountable by less powerful intellects, may be readily admitted; yet it will not be irrelevant to say, that even in his case, with the possession of so powerful an intellect, the defect was followed by consequences
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