TO THE LAST LECTURE. 493 



You may, perhaps, ask, whether these pursuits, or at 

 least these applications, are within that part of the territory 

 of science which may be marked out as the field of medi- 

 cine ? whether they ought not to be deemed foreign to our 

 immediate object, surgical practice ? They are so, if surgery 

 be regarded as a mere manual art, of which outward appli- 

 cations and operations are the sole ends ; — if surgeons feel 

 that they have taken a rank higher than they can maintain, 

 and are disposed to descend quietly into their original con- 

 dition of a subordinate mechanical class, contented to oc- 

 cupy themselves, under the sufferance and connivance of 

 their elder medical brethren, with the few petty matters, 

 which they had disdained as too low and trivial for persons 

 of superior education. 



But, Gentlemen ! such is not the light in which the 

 College of Surgeons and, what is more important, in which 

 the public regards our profession. The legislator, in 

 voting public money to purchase the rich collection formed 

 by an English surgeon, and to prepare a suitable building 

 for its safe deposit : and the rulers of this College, in the 

 pecuniary exertions, connected with the acceptance of this 

 precious gift, in the devotion of time and labour demanded 

 by the necessary arrangements, and in the institution of 

 professorships, so well calculated to keep alive the spirit of 

 emulation and improvement, have recognized surgery as a 

 liberal science, and have viewed surgeons, in the free exer- 

 cise of their allotted branch of the healing art, as an inde- 

 pendent body, responsible in its proceedings to no superior 

 professional jurisdiction. 



It is our duty. Gentlemen ! and, I am sure, it will be 

 not less our pleasure, to maintain our profession in the rank 

 thus marked out for it by public opinion. That impartial 

 and generally ej:ilightened tribunal will support and protect 

 us so long as our endeavours are honestly directed to advan- 

 cing and perfecting the theory and practice of so useful an 

 art. Our own individual credit, and the dignity, honour, 

 and reputation of our body, demand that surgeons should 

 not be behind any other class in the profession, cither in 

 the cultivation of all branches of knowledge directly con- 



