Address on the progress and dignity of the medical profession : delivered before the trustees, faculty, students and friends of the Starling Medical College at its annual commencement, February 17, 1849 / by B.T. Cushing.

  • Cushing, B. T.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address on the progress and dignity of the medical profession : delivered before the trustees, faculty, students and friends of the Starling Medical College at its annual commencement, February 17, 1849 / by B.T. Cushing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    able genius. Pericles and Aspasia saw, in Greece, more great spirits than now tread the habitable globe. It is not an Augustan age of literature, nor do the arts find a munificent patron like Lorenzo de Medici. Nor can we recall the age of Elizabeth, with Howard on the sea, Coke upon the bench, Bacon in philosophy, Shakespeare in poetry, Hooker in the church, and Raleigh every- where ! And yet our age is a remarkable one. It be- yond all others reaches forward and reaps the reward of its own progress. Other eras have been fruitful in abstract speculation, elegant literature and heroic bat- tles. Ours is marked by the rapid spread of thought, and the developement of the individual man. At no period have the masses been so intelligent as now. Old governments and dead ideas are crumbling—the political and social heavens are rolled together as a scroll, and from them we behold arise a new heaven and a new earth, whereon is written Liberty. In physical comfort, too, there is a great advance. Per- haps in no century has the world been so well fed, clothed and lodged as in this—in none perhaps have the rewards of labor been more abundant and certain. But whilst we hear self gratulatory peals rising from all Christendom, as each new fact in science or art darts up like a rocket into the blue heaven, and sets men's minds confounded with wonder, there seems to be a vague complaint among the mass that Medicine has not kept pace with the general progress. We propose to enquire if this charge be just, and know no fairer mode of testing the truth, than by comparing Medicine with other arts and sciences, held in high estimation among us.