120 Electricity and Galvanism. 



throw upon any of the phenomena of life, will be often just suf- 

 ficient to render his darkness visible. But he who, whilst devoting 

 his attention chiefly to the art he professes, at the same time reflects 

 upon it all the light he can derive from the collateral sciences, will 

 often succeed in throwing upon it a beam which illuminates the 

 phenomena he is studying to an extent previously unhoped for. Wit- 

 ness the influence of chemistry and general physics in unravelling the 

 intricate web of many of the vital functions. There have, in all ages, 

 existed men of narrow minds who have heaped their ridicule upon 

 those who have possessed the advantages to which I have just allud- 

 ed, as if medicine were the only science in which the element of ex- 

 cellence must consist in a profound ignorance of all other subjects. 

 This miserable delusion is still not without its influence ; but no 

 better apology can be offered for the cultivation of the physical 

 sciences than was made by the elegant Celsus : — " Quae quidem 

 studia, quamvis non faciunt medicum aptium orem tamen medicinae 

 faciunt." If these views should influence the practitioners of medi- 

 cine in all nations, how much more ought they to throw a weight of 

 responsibility on those of England. In all other of the European 

 nations the appellation applied to the professor of our art has always 

 some reference to his individual occupation. Whilst larpog, medicus, 

 medicin, arzt, or their inflections, constitute his title in the Greek, 

 Latin, French, and German tongues respectively, it is in our language 

 alone that he is dignified by the title of physician, thus arrogating to 

 himself a title derived from the <j>vGiq of Hippocrates, and which it 

 ought to be his greatest honour to deserve. It must ever be the high 

 and deserved boast of this college,* that it first sanctioned the applica- 

 tion of the then heterodox and infant science of chemistry to medicine. 

 Its illustrious founder, the great Linacre, was the first physician who, 

 in spite of the then degraded and despised condition of the votaries 

 of chemistry, dared to lend the weight of his high authority and il- 

 lustrious name to the support of their dogmata, and by effecting an 

 amicable union between the chemists and Galenists, laid the founda- 

 tion for most, if not all, the improvements which the art of medicine 

 has undergone since the era of our first president. 



* The Royal College of Physicians. 



