Sir John Burdon Sanderson : a memoir by the late Lady Burdon Sanderson, completed and edited by his nephew and niece, with a selection from his papers and addresses / [Ghetal Herschell Burdon-Sanderson].

  • Burdon-Sanderson, Ghetal Herschell, Lady, 1832-1909.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sir John Burdon Sanderson : a memoir by the late Lady Burdon Sanderson, completed and edited by his nephew and niece, with a selection from his papers and addresses / [Ghetal Herschell Burdon-Sanderson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    active part in this discussion, as we find that after his elevation to the professorial Chair in the University, his first act was to substitute for the vague speculations of his predecessors those imperishable truths which have ren¬ dered the reputation of their advocate as imperishable as themselves. Thus the career of this great man, which originated with the origin of this Society, only termi¬ nated in his giving Medicine a name for the first time among the sciences, and in placing our University in a position which for a long series of years it occupied—that of the first Medical School in Europe.’ He then refers to a still later time, when another great controversy agitated the world, that on the so-called Brunonian theory : ‘ The opinions of Brown were discussed in this Hall with a warmth and animation of which, I suppose, we cannot form any adequate conception, and though long and ardently supported by those to whom indolence or an un¬ governed imagination were an inducement to prefer specula¬ tion to truth, tended rather to increase than to weaken the prevalence of the Cullenian doctrines. . . . Our knowledge is now laid on a foundation more certain, more enduring than was theirs. We are engaged, as many of us as are studying our profession in the right spirit, in endeavour¬ ing to multiply our knowledge of actual phenomena by accurate observation. . . .How many of the questions which were discussed by our predecessors less than twenty years ago have been, by the accumulation of ascertained facts, now set at rest.’ The centenary of the Medical Society was an epoch not merely in its own history but also in that of medical science, for it was the year [1838] in which Schleiden’s dis¬ covery was given to the world. 4 Since that period how many other important facts have been enunciated. Need I allude to the researches on the physiology of the nervous system of two of our Presidents— one the early termination of whose career our science, and we especially as members of this Society, have deeply to regret1. The other, Dr. M. Barry, may be considered as one 1 The reference is doubtless to John Reid.