REVIEW ON THE STUDY OF SURGERY. 267 
Arnott. The ensuing passages being precisely such as are of 
general application, we make extracts of them. 
“Thus then, Gentlemen, you have heard that surgery has 
been raised to its present state of high cultivation by being 
studied as a part of medicine generally ; by a close attention to 
physiology, to anatomy, to bed-side observation and research ; 
and by a firmer trust in, and closer adaptation to, the simple 
operations and processes of nature. In order to become sound 
and accomplished surgeons, you must study your department of 
medical science with constant reference to, and in connexion 
with, those other branches of the healing art with which it is 
so intimately allied, and you must found your practice on the 
attentive observation of the actual phenomena of disease. 
“ But you must study and observe with unswerving dili- 
gence and untiring perseverance. There is no royal road, no 
short cut, to a knowledge of surgery. ' An acquaintance with 
the principles and practice of our science can only be obtained 
by years of severe and self-denying labours. Some amongst 
you, doubtless, possess higher intellectual attainments, quicker 
perception, stronger judgment, more mental vigour, and may 
accomplish more within a given time than others : but let not 
those who are less gifted despair ; let them bear in mind that 
all may command industry and perseverance ; and that these 
qualities, aided by a firm determination to succeed in whatever 
they undertake, will, to a certainty, lead to eventual success. 
It may be true that, in the imitative, the plastic arts — in those 
matters that appeal simply to the imagination, and that are 
worked out by its aid alone— nature may do as much, or even 
more, than education or will ; and that a man may be born, but 
cannot be made, a sculptor or a poet. But this is not the case 
in a profession that deals with facts and their legitimate deduc- 
tions. What is wanted for success in the study of medicine is 
industry in collecting, truthfulness in observing, and perse- 
verance in studying, the phenomena presented by the living 
body in health and in disease. If you will employ these means 
(and every man, by the exercise of a little self-denial, by a 
determination to allow nothing to divert him from his course, 
may do so), and if you will fix your gaze steadily on the point 
you wish to attain, your success in life, though it may be re- 
tarded or accelerated by circumstances beyond your control, will 
at last be secured ; and when attained, you will have the proud 
satisfaction of feeling that you have won your spurs in the 
great battle of life without favour from any one, but solely by 
your own exertions and self-reliance, and determination to bear 
down and conquer opposing difficulties 
