Xll PREFACE. 



sion. How largely natural science, in all its branches, has 

 been indebted for its progress to this body is too notorious to 

 be insisted on ; but it has been less noticed, that the men 

 who thus occupied themselves in acquiring and forwarding a 

 knowledge, which many may deem purely ornamental, were 

 the same individuals who were most engaged in the active 

 discharge of the duties of their profession, and the most in- 

 strumental to its advance. Boerhaave, Cullen, Hunter, Dar- 

 win, and Jenner are very memorable instances of this fact, 

 which is illustrated with lesser brilliancy in Lister, Sloane, 

 Mead, Fothergill, Lettsorn, Sims, Maton, in Withering of 

 Birmingham, in Percival and Hull of Manchester, in Pul- 

 teney of Dorset, Stokes of Chesterfield, and numerous 

 others, whose names will occur to every one conversant with 

 the history of medicine. This is only what, on reflection, 

 might have been anticipated, for that very activity of mind 

 and perspicacity which originated and upheld their sagacity 

 and success as practitioners, were sure to carry them far in 

 whatever side-path the natural bent of their taste led them, 

 for the occupation and entertainment of the leisure hours 

 which the busiest must have or may create. Idleness has no 

 leisure. Were it necessary I might safely shelter myself 

 under the cover of these exemplars, in the contemplation of 

 whose lives I have often nurtured my love to my profession, 

 and hence, perhaps, an ambition to follow them even at a 

 far distance ; but there never was a time when it was neces- 

 sary to vindicate to any but the ignorant, the erratic excur- 

 sions of medical men into the fields of science and literature, 

 for assuredly the rank which the profession, as a body, has 

 taken and holds in public estimation, depends for its patent, 

 in part at least, on the scientific and literary character of its 

 professors ; and by continuing to support that character they 

 will best secure it from the vulgarity of a common mercature, 

 or the selfishness of a v 7 enal quackery. 



