i894. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 411 



but can be no excuse. In the meantime, it would be quite possible to 

 make a catalogue. The members of such a Society as the Linnean, 

 with a historic past, should regard themselves as trustees for the 

 hopes of the original founders, and they should remember that it is 

 their imperative duty to maintain and improve the body corporate. 



Science and Medicine. 

 Sir James Paget and Dr. Lauder Brunton. 



The reproach of empiricism is being removed from medicine at 

 a rate which would have startled the medical mind of only twenty 

 years ago. It is true, indeed, that no amount of scientific knowledge 

 can replace clinical experience, but it is to the combination of the 

 two that we must look if we are in search of the ideal practitioner. 

 Every scientific man will welcome the tone of the inaugural address 

 delivered by Sir James Paget before the Abernethian Society, at St. 

 Bartholomew's Hospital, on October 11. That a man cannot be at 

 once a scientific man and a good practitioner was characterised by 

 Sir James as sheer nonsense, and he proceeded to show in how many 

 ways the science of medicine could be advanced, even by a busy man 

 in general practice, if he were possessed of a truly scientific mind. 

 He emphasised also the importance of the collection of facts, verified 

 again and again till they were absolutely certain. In all that he said 

 we most heartily concur. Few applied sciences are so complex as 

 that of medicine, and in none is there need of more close and accurate 

 observation. This power is to be attained only by scientific training, 

 and it is to the superior education in science now afforded to the 

 medical student that much of our recent advance is due, while still 

 more may be looked for in the future. No better maxim can be 

 taken as a guide in science than the sentence of John Hunter's quoted 

 by Sir James Paget : " Do not think : try: be patient : be accurate." 



If further commentary on Sir James Paget's address be needed, 

 it may be found in Dr. Lauder Brunton's Harveian Oration, delivered 

 a few days later before the Roy^al College of Physicians. The one 

 man above all others from whose discoveries modern medicine may 

 be said to date is undoubtedly Harvey : and Harvey was a practical 

 physician no less than a brilliant investigator. This year's Harveian 

 Orator is himself an example of the same combination, and in 

 bestowing the Moxon medal for clinical research upon Sir William 

 Jenner, the College of Physicians has shown its recognition of the 

 high value to be set on the results of scientific method in the hands 

 of a busy practical man. 



There is, however, another side of the matter. Every practitioner 

 may be and should be a scientific man, but it is not by the labours 

 of the practitioner alone that modern medicine has advanced. Of 

 this fact Dr. Brunton's Harveian Oration affords many instances 

 He devoted the major part of his time to a consideration of the 



