Volume 1

A collection of the published writings of William Withey Gull / edited and arranged by Theodore Dyke Acland.

  • Sir William Gull, 1st Baronet
Date:
1894-1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A collection of the published writings of William Withey Gull / edited and arranged by Theodore Dyke Acland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/270 page 16
    MEMOIR. the indifferent, the self-satisfied, but it is not admissible in science. 'I do not know' is manly if it does not sbop there.'' He acted on Newton's words, which he often quoted : If I do not understand a thing, I keep it before me and I wait. He never wearied of inculcating the principle that it is more important to study than to explain the phenomena of disease. One of his favourite sayings was, Fools and savages explain ; wise men investigate. It has. been said of Sir William by one of his most distinguished contemporaries : Science and sympathy were in complete agreement in him. He possessed in a marked de g'ree those characteristics which inspire trust and exercise a powerful influence over others ; and to a profound know- ledge of his profession. Sir William • added a profound knowledge of mankind. A passage from the ' Gruy's Hospital Eeports ' ^ admir- ably describes him. His striking presence, his searching scrutiny, his minute and deliberate examination of every case, and the few carefully and slowly uttered words in which he delivered his judgment, sometimes with epigrammatic pungency, often with encouragement, and never without sympathy—all combined to give him an almost unequalled ascendancy over his patients. His manner was his own, and sprang naturally from the habit of his mind. It was just the same in a hospital ward as in a palace, and the poorest of his patients leaned on his oracular statements, sometimes with hope and sometimes with resignation, but always with comfort; while the richest were taught to restrain loquacity, to answer truthfully, and to follow out directions implicitly. The mei'it of Gull, as of Stokes, Oppolzer, Trousseau, and other great physicians, was that he added to the methodical investigation of facts the insight and judgment without which a man may be an admirable clinical teacher, and yet entirely fail in the diagnosis of really difiicult cases, in the estimation of probabilities, and in wise therapeutics. For practical medicine is an art; and when all the facts which the most elaborate examination of the patient's actual state can supply have been brought in due order befox-e us, 1 Vol. xlvii.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3