INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
691 
the circumstance of his making a diagram of the nerves of 
the neck. But it is needless to multiply instances, which 
abound as well in those lesser utilities which are daily added 
to our profession, as in the highest regions of invention. 
These men are the teachers of teachers — the true Archiaters 
of our profession ; the Hierophants of medical science ! 
(Applause.) 
EXTRACT FROM MR. GUTHRIE’S INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
AT THE WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL, October, 1853. 
( From the Lancet ). 
After speaking of the present regulations of the Council 
of the College of Surgeons respecting the attendance on 
lectures, Mr. Guthrie proceeded to say, “ No man can be 
taught any practical branch of learning by lectures. They 
can only point out to him what he ought to learn, and by 
giving him a general knowledge of the subject, enable him 
afterwards to work out practically. I was once told by a 
student that he could describe any part in the human body, 
or in anatomy, he had not seen, just as well as one he had 
seen ; nevertheless he did not know the very parts he had 
described to me when they were placed before him. He 
could state accurately enough the difference between a hernia, 
a hydrocele, and a varicocele. He was eloquent on the 
subject of the latter feeling like a bag of earth-worms ; albeit 
he had never felt a bag of earth-worms, and did not know 
practically what sort of feeling it conveyed ; and when I 
brought him here, and showed him these diseases, he could 
not tell one from the other, for he had never seen them. 
Lectures on all subjects should certainly be delivered annually. 
A student should attend one course of each, or make up in a 
second course for such parts as may have been accidentally 
omitted in the first. More is, in my opinion, unnecessary, 
as taking up time which may be more usefully employed. 
The certificates usually given of such attendances are some- 
times fraudulent ; little dependence can be placed on the 
accuracy of any of them, and the sooner they are abolished the 
better, being, in many instances, as great a discredit to those 
who give as to those who receive them. It ought not to be 
difficult to say what might be substituted for them ; but it 
can only be done, I fear, with advantage when the College of 
Surgeons and the Society of Apothecaries shall cease to act 
on antagonistic principles — when the curricula, as they are 
