336 THE PRESENT ASPECT OF MEDICINE. 



IV.— THE PRESENT ASPECT OF MEDICINE* 



'JriTPixri ya^ son Tgdafcaig %al atpai'geffig. 



Hippoc. nEPI NOSHN. 



Gentlemen — Had I acted in accordance with my own feel- 

 ings, and with those arrangements which I have latterly- 

 found most conducive to my efficiency as a teacher and man 

 of science, I should have gratefully but firmly declined the 

 honour you have conferred on me by placing me in this 

 Chan-. I could not, however, forget that, among the aspira- 

 tions of my earlier life, none were stronger than the desire of 

 attaining an honourable position in the practical department 

 of my profession ; and that although the comprehensive 

 study of the science to which I am devoted, and the duty of 

 teaching it, now necessarily occupy and exhaust my time 

 and energies, nevertheless I could not decline attempting 

 at least to act in accordance with the wishes of a body of my 

 professional brethren, for whom I have so warm a regard, and 

 to whom I am so deeply indebted, as the members of this 

 Society. 



The periodic change of office-bearers in a society like this 

 is not to be viewed merely as the necessary transference of 

 official duties from one set of persons to another. On the 

 contrary, office-bearers must, in addition, be assumed to 

 represent, more or less comprehensively, the objects and 

 purposes of the Society itself. But as every department of 

 human knowledge is contemplated from a somewhat different 



* Tliis inaugural address was delivered from the President's Chair at the 

 meeting of the Medico-Chirurgieal Society of Edinburgh on the 5th January 

 1859. 



