Science and modern civilisation : the Harveian oration : delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18, 1897 / by Sir William Roberts.

  • Roberts, William, Sir, 1830-1899.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Science and modern civilisation : the Harveian oration : delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18, 1897 / by Sir William Roberts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    give work and wages to millions of the population ; and has placed all kinds of manufacturing processes upon a basis of scientific precision. Under cover of chemistry have sprung up the sub-sciences of photo- graphy and spectroscopy, which have given a new and unexpected development to our knowledge of the heavenly bodies. The revelations of palaeontology and embryology have led to the establishment on a firm basis of the theory of organic evolution. This theory—by far the most penetrating generalisation of our time—has not only thrown a flood of light upon the deepest problems of natural history, but has also revolutionised the whole domain of speculative thought. Physiology and practical medicine have profited im- mensely by the general advance of the sister sciences, and by the adoption of scientific methods in the prose- % cution of research. Optical science gave birth to the achromatic microscope. The microscope has laid bare the minute structure of plants and animals, and intro- duced zoologists and botanists to a vast sub-kingdom of minute forms of life, previously undreamt of. The microscope also, in conjunction with chemistry, founded the new science of bacteriology. Bacteriology has inspired the beneficent practice of antiseptic surgery; it has also discovered to us the parasitic nature of zymotic diseases—and opened out a fair prospect of ultimate deliverance from their ravages. Thus have the several sciences advanced, and are still advancing, in concert, step on step, by mutual help, at an ever-increasing speed—pushed on by that irrepressible forward impulse which has characterised the scientific movement from its inception. This movement has now become the dominant factor in civilisation.