RECORDS 



OF 



GENERAL SCIENCE 



AUGUST, 1835. 



Article I. 



Biographical Account of Baron Dupuytren. 

 (With a Portrait). 



The advocates of public Concours may fairly boast, that 

 among other great men, it produced a Dupuytren. Without 

 this Institution, indeed, we do not see how such men can 

 be brought into their proper sphere of activity, at that fit 

 age, when the limbs are sure and nimble and the organs of 

 vision most perfect. 



Whilst the Concours is the only efficient mode of testing 

 a professional man's ability, it becomes, at once, the most 

 powerful and most legitimate incentive to exertion, because 

 it ensures to him a fair appreciation and just reward, 

 according to his real merit. Without it, how could Dupuy- 

 tren have become Prosecteur to the Ecole de Santt at the age 

 of eighteen ? At this early period of life, he thus learned, that 

 he belonged to a country, where, whatever services he could 

 render to science and humanity, would be fairly weighed 

 with those of his competitors; and thus stimulated to 

 labour and exertion, he rose through the same honourable 

 means to be Chef des Travaux Anatomiques at the age of 

 twenty-four ; Second Surgeon to the Hotel Dieu at twenty- 

 six ; and at thirty-three, ascended the chair of Sabatier, as 

 Professor of Operative Surgery to the School of Medicine ! 

 Nor can it be said that the Concours opens too easy a path to 



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