President's Address

TU BRITI AUG. 4, 1900.1 ANNUAL MEETING: PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. MEDICAL JORAL 2 3 great learning alike endeared him to the whole profession. PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS His early scientific contributions, and particularly his discovery of the trichina spiralis in muscle while yet a student DELIVERED AT THE at St. Bartholomew's, gave promise of a career which has been SIXTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BRITISH fully realised. MEDICAL ASSOCIATION The task of selecting a subject upon which to crave your BY indulgence, and not to unduly tax your patience, has been to me one of some anxiety. It is a matter of satisfaction that WILLIAM ALFRED ELLISTON, M.D., these troubles are not confined to Presidents of this Associa- Senior Surgeon, East Suffolk and Ipswich Hospital. tion. For instance, it is recorded of a very distinguished surgeon, who was appointed to deliver the Hunterian oratiox SOME INCIDENTS IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE at the Royal College of Surgeons, that anxious possibly to go MODERN PHYSICIAN. upon fresh lines he commenced with a historical prelude so I BEG to welcome you most heartily to East Anglia, long that he never once mentioned the great surgeon he was and to desired to laudate, nor had he in the prescribed time arrived assure you that we highly appreciate the honour conferred at the century in which he lived. upon us by your selection to hold your sixty-eighth annual meeting in this town. DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH MEDICINE. lt is twenty-six years ago since this great Association met Reflecting with mixed feeling upon this experience, I pro- pose to-night briefly to touch upon some incidents in the de- in East Anglia, in the city of Norwich, and it speaks for its velopments of the science of British medicine and the evolu- ever-growing importance and utility that on that occasion tion of the modern physician. I use the term physician in its there were some 6,ooo members only, and the scientific busi- broadest sense of the type now considered an ideal one, as ness of the meeting was conducted in four sections. On this illustrated in literature by the rare delineature of Dr. Lydgate occasion the first meeting of the nineteen hundreds, the by George Eliot in Middlenmarch and of Dr. Maclure by [an Maclaren in Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, and as admirably members have increased to over i8,ooo, of whom 4,000 are pourtrayed in art by Mr. Luke Fildes in his strikingly pathetic members of our Colonial Branches, and the scientific work picture of " The Doctor." needs thirteen sections. The early history of medical science in this country is con- The many important subjects that have been laboriously current with the advance of all scientific knowledge. During and caretully arranged for discussion by the secretaries of the Dark Ages, men of learning had spent their time in trans- the various Sections will, I feel sure, result in the acquire- lating and repeating what the Greeks had taught, until at inent of information of most valuable material for future ob- last they had come to believe that Ptolemy, Galen, and servation. It is a matter of great congratulation that the Com- Aristotle had settled most of the scientific questions, and that mittees who are responsible for the organisation of this meet- no one had any right to doubt their decisions. ing have succeeded in obtaining the assistance of so brilliant a In the annals of British science, there was one exception staff of officers of Sections, embracing distinguished names to the apathy of Englishmen-Roger Bacon, the Franciscan of world-wide reputation, and that they are promised also the friar, who is stated to have been the first man inEurope to assistance of many of the more celebrated of the seniors of make gunpowder. Green speaks of him as livingbefore his time, the profession. but the probability is that travelling and studying natural The town in which we are assembled is one of much com- science, and particularly alchemy in Italy, he became imbued mercial importance. Manufacturers and merchants do a con- with ideas of scientific progress that were absolutely dormant siderable business with many of our colonies. It is an in this country until 250 years later. This remarkable man, ancient town, and there are many beautiful specimens of old whose reputation suffers by confusion with the great lawyer houses, gateways, and corner posts. To those who desire a bet- and scientist Francis Bacon, published as early as 1240 his ter acquaintance with its history I would refer them to Bound Opus Majus; in this he predicts that " One day ships will go About Ipswich, by the late Dr J. E. Taylor; Annals of Ipswich, on the waters without sails, and carriages run on the roads by Nathaniel Bacon; and Old Corner Posts, by Mr. J. S. without horses, and that people will make machines to fly in Corder, recently published. Great Englishmen have been the air." He seems to have known the theory of a telescope. associated with Ipswich in the past. Nicholas Bacon, the He says, " We can place transparent bodies (that is, glasses) Lord Keeper, was a Freeman of Ipswich; his younger son, in such a position between the eyes and other objects, that Lord Bacon, represented Ipswich in two Parliaments, and in the rays shall be refracted and bent towards any place we more recent times Lord Nelson was High Steward. Thomas please, so that we shall see the object near at hand or at a Gainsborough lived and painted here. Charles Dickens found distance under any angle we please, and thus from an in- Ipswich to be worthy of many scenes for his fertile pen; but credible distance we may read the smallest letter, and may the personal association which throws lustre upon Ipswich is number the smallest particles of sand, by reason of the great- the fact that the famous Cardinal Wolseywas born here. It is ness of the angle under which they appear." still, I think, a standing reproach to Ipswich that there is no While, therefore, down to the period of the commencement monument to his memory, except one,that he built himself, of the sixteenth century England had taken no share in the and which is the sole remains of the great College he intended scientific advancement of the Continent, and for almost a to have raised at Ipswich. hundred years later no discovery of any importance was due Among the illustrious medical names associated with East to English research, the profession was busy as a whole in Anglia are William Gilbert, Sir Thomas Browne, Edward acquiring protection for their rights and privileges. Rigby, J. G. Crosse, Sir Astley Cooper, the Brothers Paget, Sir Thomas Watson (educated at Bury St. Edmunds), Jeaffre- SCIENCE AND THE NEW LEARNING. son (ovariotomist), Sir William Gull, John Hilton, Sir George The continuous progress of British science commenced with Humphry, and many others, while among those yet living the return of Thomas Linacre to Oxford from the Italian uni- are some of the foremost names in the science of medicine. versities, whence he came imbued with what was termed the Since the last annual meeting this Association has lost two " new learning," then recently introduced by the Greek pro- members of great distinction, one full of years, "who had fessors, who had been attracted to Italy. At this time the laboured well far into the evening of life ": and the other cut learned of all countries were profoundly impressed by the short in his career, but yet with a record of great distinction. recent discovery of America, by the scientific discoveries of All who were present at the Edinburgh meeting in 1898 will such men as Copernicus and Paracelsus. The printing press remember the cordial hospitality of the President, Sir Thomas was changing the conditions of life, and literature became Grainger Stewart, and the conspicuous ability with which he the common property of all. conducted the business of that large gathering. In the death Green, the historian, says: " The sudden contact with new of Sir James Paget the profession has lost one of the greatest earths and new races of men quickened the slumbering intel- and most philosophic surgeons of the age, and East Anglia ligence of Europe into a strange curiosity. Books of voyage one of her most illustrious sons. His high character and were greatly sought for, and among other works published at [2066] Tnz BarnTim 1 1900. 2742mzNDcL jouRNAL ANNUAL MEETING: PRESIDNENTS ADDRESS. [AUG. 4, 9 this time perhaps none had a more remarkable effect than Wound8 and of the Errors of Surgeon&. He isubsequently the Utopia of the famous Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More, published The Jewel of Health, "wherein is contained the which in its wide range of speculation on every subject of most excellent secretes of physic and philosophie, divided human thought and action tells us how roughly and utterly the into foure bookes." He condemns the writing a book in the narrowness and limitation of human life had been broken up." vulgar"tone. I would not have," he says, "every ignorant As a sanitary reformer he dwells upon the necessity for pure asse to be made a chirurgeon by my booke, for they would do water, the structure and ventilationtheof house, the garden more harm with it than good." at the back, the width of the street, the cleanliness of the In the sixteenth century there were already established house, the necessity of removing the infected sick to isolated physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries.

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