Introductory lecture to a course on obstetrics / by R.A.F. Penrose.

  • Richard Alexander Fullerton Penrose
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture to a course on obstetrics / by R.A.F. Penrose. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    did not understand, but merely wrote under the prophetic spirit, a system of cosmogony which, in this, the last half of our wise nineteenth century, with the full blaze of the Ught of science upon it, is proved, as far as we are able to go, to be almost verbatim correct. Let us see in these investigations, whether, as far as the origin of man is concerned, Moses in his cosmogony did not speak with the most scientific accuracy. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Thus Moses speaks. What says the science of embryology'? Why, it tells us, though in a different phraseology, precisely the same thing. These two secretions, this egg^ this sperm, mere matter, only dust, which, if they do not meet, die, and revert again to the universe of matter; these two secretions, united, give rise to the most appallingly mysterious phenomenon among the many wonders of our being. These two secre- tions, mere matter, only dust, united, bring into existence —what] A living vegetable, capable of growth and reproduction 1 No!—this, it is true, would be most strange, and past our comprehension. What! an animal, possessing volition, reason, and intelligence only! No— though this would be yet more passing strange. No—
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