144 PROCEEDINGS OF PROVINCIAL SOCIETIES. 



branches of meilical education. It is recommended that the Board 

 of management should be enlarged to twelve, and that country 

 governors be admissible. — This extremely clear and satisfactory 

 report concludes by earnestly and respectfully inviting the patrons 

 of the institution, the friends and parents of students, and the me- 

 dical profession in general, to take every convenient opportunity of 

 inspecting the increase of the Museums, and indeed the whole pro- 

 gress of the School of Medicine, the permanency of which is now 

 considered to be immoveably established, and the utility of which can 

 only be maintained by zealous endeavour, by regularity, and by 

 strict discipline in every department. 



The Rev. Chancellor Law then delivered an eloquent address, of 

 which the following is a brief outline .^ — 



After citing an anecdote of Sir Benjamin Brodie, in illustration 

 of the correct and generous feeling of that individual, the learned 

 gentleman alluded to the Profession as a body, which, he observed, 

 abounded "with gentlemen of the most christian-like tone and 

 temper, and of singular humanity; remarkable alike for the strength, 

 — the correctness, — the richness, — of their highly cultivated and 

 christian minds." — In corroboration of this eulogium he adduced the 

 testimony of Dr. Johnson, and Sir Robert Peel. The former, in 

 his life of Garth, says, "^ Every one has found in Physicians great 

 liberality and dignity of sentiment ; very prompt effusion of bene- 

 ficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art, where there is no 

 hope of lucre." Sir Robert Peel had publicly declared in the 

 Plouse of Commons, that "For the enlightened views, pure philoso- 

 phy, and liberal feelings of medical men generally, he felt so much 

 respect, that he did not hesitate to pronounce them a blessing to 

 their native land, and an honour to humanity." 



Mr. Law, in addressing himself to the members of the school, 

 strenuously advocated, what he placed far before all other requisites, 

 an observance of religious obligations, and correct moral conduct, 

 and, in the course of his observations, repelled the opinion enter- 

 tained by some persons, that the medical profession is inclined to 

 sceptisism, illustrating his defence by a beautiful description of the 

 admirable structure and mechanism of the human eye and ear. 



Our limits will not permit us to touch upon several other topics 

 alluded to in the course of this eloquent address ; but the following 

 apposite remarks for the guidance of students are deserving their 

 attention : — 



"Allow me then to recommend young students to adopt such a line of 

 general study, as, by enlarging the compass of their minds, may gain for 

 them the power of discovering latent causes, and tracing the windings of the 

 human heart to its secret sources. For ofttimes, I believe, diseases are 

 generated by causes not apparent in the mechanical structure, or apparatus, 

 — if 1 may use the expression, — of the human body, but proceed from the 

 hidden working of some master-passion, acting sympathetically on the nerves, 

 and baffling the utmost skill of the anatomist and demonstrator. It was a 

 sudden and powerful emotion of the mind which is said to have caused the 



