33 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN MODERN THOUGHT. 1 



By HENEY MAUDSLEY, M. D., 



PROFESSOR OF MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 



/""i ENTLEMEN : It has devolved upon me this year to deliver, in 

 \JT accordance with prescribed custom, the introductory lecture to 

 the course of systematic instruction upon which you are about to 

 enter. At the outset I am free to confess that I have been not a lit- 

 tle perplexed and troubled about what I ought most fitly to say; like 

 many of my predecessors in the office, I have found the choice of 

 subject beset with difficulties, and I have small hope that I can say 

 anything to redeem the usual barrenness of the occasion. It is just 

 twenty-five years since I, sitting where one of you now sits, listened 

 to my first introductory lecture from the lips mute, alas ! now for- 

 ever of one whose pure and gentle nature attracted in no common 

 measure the esteem, the respect, and the affection, of all who knew 

 him. I mean the late Dr. Parkes. It is an extraordinary, almost an 

 unparalleled, thing to say of any man, that no one who heard men- 

 tion made of his name ever heard an ill word said of him ; but I be- 

 lieve that this was strictly true of Parkes. His life, lovely and of 

 good report throughout, was indeed a practical refutation of the say- 

 ing, " Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you." If I 

 could sketch in striking outline the features of his character, and set 

 forth justly the pure course of his life showing with what patient 

 industry and entire sincerity of insight he worked in scientific in- 

 quiries, how upright he was in all his ways, and how kindly consid- 

 erate to others : how he lived, and how, his work faithfully done, he 

 died I should probably give you an inspiring and most useful in- 

 troductory lecture ; for I should present to you a noble example, the 

 labor to imitate which would be an excellent scientific and moral 

 training. But that has been done with more or less completeness 

 by various persons, though not always, perhaps, with the discrimina- 

 tion which one would wish to see shown in the appreciation of such a 

 character. It is a very amiable wish to say everything good of a man 

 when he is silent forever, and the vocabulary of flattering words is 

 apt to be exhausted in the endeavor to gratify this feeling, the effect 

 sometimes being that the actual features of the character are blurred, 

 and something which is intended to be very perfect, but which is 

 very unreal, is produced. It seems to me that the distinguishing 

 characteristic of Parkes, that by which mainly he was what he was, 

 was not so much originality or height of intellect (in this others have 

 equaled or surpassed him) as the height of his moral stature in this 



1 Introductory lecture delivered at University College, London, October 2, 1876. 



