The Harveian oration for 1889 : delivered 12th April, at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh / by J. Bell Pettigrew.

  • Pettigrew, James Bell, 1834-1908.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Harveian oration for 1889 : delivered 12th April, at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh / by J. Bell Pettigrew. 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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    generous nor just, for every one knows tliat no path is so arduous as that of the original inquirer, and whoever elects to tread it must not only labour incessantly, but deny himself continually. The painful fate of Socrates, the cruel martyrdom of Servetus, and the persecution and untimely death of Vesalius, afford examples of men who have sacrificed their all for the sake of progress and truth. Verily, the path of the discoverer is not strewed with flowers. Nevertheless, I take it, that every original inquirer has his reward, if not in worldly goods and chattels, in high commun- ings with Nature, and in the deep satisfaction which flows from self-denial, lofty achievement, and a sense of duty done. The heart and the mind are both expanded by contact with the works of the great First Cause, and he soon comes to exclaim with Coleridge:— He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast, He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small, For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all. It may truly be said that few if any great discoveries are made per saltum, at a bound, as it were. They for the most part filter through many men's minds, and occasionally at long intervals of time. As the mountain is formed by the aggregation of indi- vidual particles industriously piled up, so the huge tome of human knowledge is produced by the aggregation of separate discoveries, each forming an integral and necessary part of the whole. One discovery leads to another, and thus it happens that, as civilisation advances and time grows older, the tiny rills of human knowledge widen into the brimming river, the brimming river into the broad estuary, and the broad estuary into the practically boundless ocean of universal truth. The discoveries of the ancients were unimportant when compared with those of modern times; but who shall say that the early dis- coveries were not essential to the later discoveries, and that without them the later discoveries could not have been made. To take examples, where would that wonderful instrument the phonograph, invented by Bell and perfected by Edison, have been to-day, but for a knowledge of the human voice, and ear, and the laws of acoustics ? Where, moreover, would that mysterious and far- reaching instrument, the modern telegraph, have been without a knowledge of electricity ? Nay, more, where would electricity itself—tlie veritable fire of heaven—have been but for a knowledge of the laws of motion and the transformation of energy ? From small beginnings the very greatest results may ultimately flow j and for this, if for no other reason, we are bound to honour the discoveries, be they great or small, of the ancients in Medicine as in all other departments of learning.