Suggestions in reference to the means of advancing medical science : being the opening address delivered before the members of the Harveian Society, on November 6th, 1856 / by Francis H. Ramsbotham.

  • Ramsbotham, Francis H. (Francis Henry), 1800-1868.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suggestions in reference to the means of advancing medical science : being the opening address delivered before the members of the Harveian Society, on November 6th, 1856 / by Francis H. Ramsbotham. 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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    an instance I may mention, that when the great Stephenson was examined many years ago by a Committee of the House of Commons as to the feasibility of rail-road travelling, he gave evidence that he had no doubt twelve miles an hour might be obtained by the engines he proposed to construct; and as he left the room he said to a gentleman, well known to fashion, science, and the arts, now dead, but who himself told me the anecdote,* that he felt satisfied he might have substituted twenty miles for twelve, but that he feared he should then have been considered a visionary enthusiast, and so have damned the cause he had at heart. Who could have supposed fifty years ago that wind and tide would ever be looked upon as elements scarcely worth the con- sideration of the mariner ? Who could have imagined ten years ago that in 1856 a net-work of wires would be carried through the sea and over land, by means of which our thoughts could be wafted in an instant to every part of Europe ; that even in Constantinople might be known what was passing in London in less time almost than is required by me to state the fact; and that, too, by the agency of the same power that must have caused such consternation to'former generations ? Who could have thought, even in the wildest dreams of romance, eight years ago, that ever human science could have bade the sun to stamp indelibly on a tablet the fine and delicate lineaments of the human face, the perfect elevation of a cathedral with all its ornamental tracery, or the exact features of an extensive land- scape ? Who would have thought that the Menai Straits would have been spanned by an iron tube capable of carrying, from bank to bank, a load of many hundred tons, darting through its cavity at a rate of thirty miles an hour ? And in times not far removed from our own age, who would have dreamed that the dirty, despised coal-mines of England would have brought indescribably more wealth to their immediate possessors and to the country at large, than the far-famed mines of Golconda, or the gold and silver of Peru ? The late Count D'Orsay.