Extracts from various authors, and fragments of table-talk : afternoons at L*********.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extracts from various authors, and fragments of table-talk : afternoons at L*********. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    only pervaded Medicine, but almost every other I branch of knowlege. When, however, the mind i shall be obliged to observe facts which can not be \ reconciled with such opinions, it will be evident 7 that the opinions are ill-founded, and they will be \ laid aside. We grant, it does not always happen ! that men are induced to give up their opinions, or 1 even to think them wrong, on observing facts which i do not agree with them; but surely it is the best ] means of producing this effect; and whatever \ change may be wrought on the individuals them- selves, the world will be convinced, which has fewer prejudices to combat. — M. Baillie, M.D., Morbid Anatomy, 1833, Preface. While a certain creed is established on any given ' | professional subject, most people are disposed to see ' the phenomena connected with it as they fancy that ’ 1 they should see them, and independent thought and | original observation are talents rarely vouchsafed ’ ! to any one. Professional men of late have been | impressed with the idea, that by entirely renouncing | the authority of the ancients, they show themselves to be original observers ; but such persons are more the slaves of established modes of thought and conventional opinions, than if they were familiarly acquainted with all the authorities in medicine from the earliest time down to the present day; for it is only when possessed of this knowlege, that a man of a well-constituted mind feels that he is fully warranted to exercise an independent judgement of his own. In literature, as in warfare, it is