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BEING THE SUBJECT OF THE FIRST TWO ANATOMICAL LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE ROYAL COLLEGE

OF SURGEONS, OF LONDON.

BY JOHN ABERNETHY, F.R.S. &c.

"

PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY AND SURGERY TO THE COLLEGE.

London:

PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORE, AND

BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

H. Bryer, Printer, Bridge Street, Blackfriars, London'

QH343 A35

BIOLOGY LIBRARY

G

.BC

LECTURE I.

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IN succeeding Sir William Blizard in the honorable office of Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, I think it right to inform my audience that he was my earliest instructor in these sciences; and that I am greatly indebted to him for much and most valuable information respecting them. My warmest thanks are also due to him for the interest he excited in my mind towards these studies, and for the excellent advice he gave me, in. common with other students, to direct me in the attainment of knowledge.

"Let your search after truth," he

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would say, "be eager and constant. Be wary in admitting propositions to be facts before you have submitted them to the strictest examination. If, after this, you believe them to be true, never disregard or forget any one of them, however unimportant it may at the time appear. Should you perceive truths to be important, make them motives of action; let them serve as springs to your con

duct.'

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Many persons," he remarked, " acknowledge truth with apathy; they assent to it, but it produces no further effect on their minds. Truths, however, are of importance, in proportion as they admit of inferences which ought to have an influence in our conduct; and if we neglect to draw those inferences, or to act in conformity to them, we fail in essential duties."

Our preceptor further contrived by various means to excite a degree of enthusiasm in the minds of his pupils. He displayed to us the beau ideal of the medical character:-I cannot readily tell

you

how

splendid and brilliant he made it appear;and then, he cautioned us never to tarnish its lustre by any disingenuous conduct, by any thing that wore even the semblanee of dishonour. He caused the sentiment of the philanthropic Chremes, in the Heautontimorumenos of Terence, to be inscribed on the walls of the hospital-surgery, that students should have constantly before them an admonition to humanity, drawn from á reflection on their own wants: Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto.

I could with pleasure enlarge on this theme, but I check myself, because I am aware that what I am

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