INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE

ON THE

DUTIES AND CONDUCT OF MEDICAL STUDENTS AND PRACTITIONERS.

ADDRESSED TO THE STUDENTS OF ST. GEORGE'S HOSPITAL,

OCTOBER 2, 1843.

- πρήξης δ' αἰσχρόν ποτε μήτε μετ ̓ ἄλλου, Μήτ' ἰδίῃ· πάντων δὲ μάλιστ ̓ αἰσχύνεο σαυτόν.

PYTHAGORE CARM. AUR.

A LARGE proportion of those whom I now address are assembled, for the first time, for the purpose of pursuing their studies in the Medical School of this Hospital; and their feelings on this occasion are not unknown to me; for, to a great extent at least, they must be such as I myself experienced, when long ago I was situated as they are at the present moment. Transplanted, perhaps, from some small community into this great city; the largest, the most populous, the richest that ever flourished; jostled in crowded streets; surrounded by palaces; where the highborn and the wealthy; where the most eminent statesmen; the most distinguished in literature, in sciences, and arts, and in every other human pursuit, are, as it were, fused into one mass to make the London world: contemplating the novel scene around you, but being not yet identified with it; it cannot be otherwise than that a sense of loneliness should come upon you in the intervals of excitement; that you should say, 'What am I in the midst of so much bustle, activity, and splendour? who will be at the pains to watch the course of a medical student? who will know whether I am diligent or idle, or bear testimony in after years to the

correctness or irregularity of my conduct during this brief per of my life?'

But let not your inexperience lead you into so great an Even now, when you believe that no one heeds you, mangare upon you. Whether you are diligent in your studies; ing to the utmost to obtain a knowledge of your professi honourable in your dealings with others; conducting yours as gentlemen; or whether you are idle and inattentive; off in your manners; coarse and careless in your general demeano wasting the precious hours, which should be devoted to stud frivolous and discreditable pursuits; all these things are notel your ultimate advantage or disadvantage; and in future days! will find that it is not on accidental circumstances, but on character which you have made as students, that your sucess practitioners, and as men engaged in the business of the w will mainly depend. By the time that you are sufficienti vanced for your lot in life to be finally determined, the cours events will have wrought mighty changes among us. who are now the most conspicuous in station, and the m fluential in society, many will have altogether vanished from the scene of their former labours; and others will be to be found e in the retirement of old age. Younger and more active spirit. your own cotemporaries, and those a little older than yourselve will have occupied their places; and the tribunal, by which y will be judged of hereafter, will be composed of a different ordi of individuals from those to whose favourable opinion you weak • at this moment be most anxious to appeal.

But I should be sorry if I were misunderstood as representing this to be the only, or the principal motive, which should lead you to avail yourselves to the utmost of your present opportunities. The knowledge which you will obtain as students, is to be the foundation of the whole of that which many years of profes sional practice will afford you afterwards; and, if the foundation be insecure, the superstructure will be of little value. However I imperfect may be the sciences belonging to the healing art, to

ng them even to their present state has been the work of cencies. The industrious student may enter on the active pursuit his profession with a scanty store of knowledge compared with at of which he will find himself possessed twenty years afterirds; but he is in the direct road to greater knowledge. He is the advantages of principles which have been established by e labours of many preceding generations; and this will render e subsequent efforts of his life comparatively easy. But he who as neglected his education, must, as it were, begin anew; and he ill find, when it is too late, that no combination of energy and alent will enable him to rise to the level of those who were, in he beginning, his more diligent competitors. He will, moreover, abour under another and still greater disadvantage. One business of education is to impart knowledge; but another, and still more important one, is to train the intellectual faculties. To acquire the habit of fixing the attention on the object before you; of observing for yourselves; of thinking and reasoning accurately; of distinguishing at once that which is important from that which is trivial; all this must be accomplished in the early part of life, or it will not be accomplished at all: and the same remark is not less applicable to qualities of another order. Integrity and generosity of character; the disposition to sympathise with others; the power of commanding your own temper; of resisting your selfish instincts; and that self-respect, so important in every profession, but especially so in our own profession, which would prevent you from doing in secret what you would not do before all the world; these things are rarely acquired, except by those who have been careful to scrutinise and regulate their own conduct in the very outset of their career.

It cannot be too often brought before you, nor too earnestly impressed upon your minds, that being, in the present stage of your journey through life, in a great degree released from responsibility to others, your responsibility to yourselves is much increased. Your future fortunes are placed in your own hands; you may make them, or mar them, as you please. Those among you,

who now labour hard in the acquirement of knowledge, will find that they have laid in a store which will be serviceable to them ever afterwards. They will have the satisfaction of knowing that, in practising their art for their own advantage, they are, at the same time, making themselves useful to their fellow-creatures: when they obtain credit, they will feel that it is not undeserved; and a just self-confidence will support them even in their failures. But for those who take an opposite course, there is prepared a long series of mortifications and disappointments. Younger men will be placed over their heads. Even where their judgment is correct, they will themselves suspect it to be wrong. With them, life will be a succession of tricks and expedients; and if, by any accident, they should find themselves elevated into situations for which they have not been qualified by previous study, they will find that this is to them no good fortune; the world will always compare them with better persons, and the constant anxiety to satisfy others, and to keep themselves from falling, will destroy the comfort of their existence. Whether it be in our profession or any other, I know of no individuals much more to be pitied than those whom fortuitous circumstances have lifted into places, the duties of which they are not well qualified to perform.

I trust that none among you will suspect that these observations are founded on any theoretical view of the subject, or that it is merely as a matter of course that I thus address myself to younger men. I wish to see those who are educated in this Hospital, an institution to which I am indebted for so many advantages which I have possessed in life, go forth into the world useful and respectable members of an honourable and independent profession. I wish to see them obtain success, and worthy of the success which they obtain; and having now had a long experience in the history of medical students, and having been careful to watch their progress through life, I am satisfied that the only method by which this can be accomplished, is that which I have pointed out: and, I may add, that I have never known an individual, who thus applied himself seriously and in earnest to his task, whose exer