Westminster Hospital Medical School : the introductory address (session 1874-75) / by John B. Potter.

  • Potter, John B. (John Baptiste), 1839-1900.
Date:
[1874?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Westminster Hospital Medical School : the introductory address (session 1874-75) / by John B. Potter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    work ; if you have not been as diligent with your note-book or in the dissecting-room, make up for this by renewed efforts; if you have done with your primary examination, be constant in your visits to the wards, note-book in hand, and also in the post-mortem theatre and in the out-patient rooms. To you who are finishing your curriculum, and are about to enter upon the rugged work of practice, let me say a few words as to your duties and responsibilities. Let me espcially exhort you to practise your profession in the true medical spirit—not as mere practitioners, or more correctly drug-distributors — seeing your patients and order¬ ing medicines by routine, as a tradesman distributes his goods through the parish, but that you will practise it intellectually. Every fresh case you see has its own points of interest different from every other case, and will afford you intellectual food, and enable you to advance at least your own knowledge a little, if not to increase the general stock. If you become dull routine practitioners, we shall indeed be heartily sorry. Kemember that in addition to gaining a livelihood, in our pursuits we have the infinitely greater delight of using intellect and improving science, which cannot be said of many occupations to which men are unfortunately fitted. As an instance of what may be done in even a remote country district, I may mention the late Dr. Uvedale West, who wrote a most admirable monograph on Cranial presenta¬ tions and Cranial positions; he practised in a small town in Lincolnshire, and was unfortunately cut off in the prime of life. In the preface to this he says, ‘ The study of these subjects at the bedside has been the author’s solace while fulfilling the anxious and arduous duties of a despised pro¬ fession ... It has rendered interesting what would other¬ wise have been a dreary and thankless monotony of ordinary