The Sun.
London, England, 1828-10-06 00:00:00

THE LONDON UNIVERSITY.

On Saturday Mr. Pattison delivered his opening lecture
on the subject of Anatomy, for which he is appointed Pro-
fessor at this Institution. The Theatre was crowded to ex-
cess; and his Lecture frequently received marks of the
warmest approbation.
Mr. Pattison began 'by observing that anatomy was to
be looked upon as the foundation of all chirurgical know-
ledge, and was therefore deserving of peculiar attention from
those whit were turning their thoughts that way. He in-
tended to give a sketch of the progress of the'science, both
in ancient and modern times, though on this head he must
necessarily be very brief, for to go into particulars would
lead him far beyond his bounds. The superstition of the
ancients had militated strongly against the study of this sci-
ence, owing to their belief that no spirit could reach Elysium
till its body had either been interred or burned; and although
Galen had-aaserted that Hippocrates, the lather of medicine,
had made the dissection of the human• body. a portion of
his studies, yet, most certainly, we had no proof to
that effect ; but on the contrary, •we had every reasnu to
believe that it was not so, his only knowledge of the
science appearing to have been gathered from the dissection
of inferior animals; and the consideration of such human
hones as he might have been fortunate enough to have met
with in the vicinity of places of sepulture. Thiassertion,
also, that Aristotle had ,had opportunities of dissecting the
human frame, the Lecturer considered equally unfounded.
He by no means asserted that the science was altogether
unknown ; for it was pretty certain, that Pythagoras
must have had an opportunity of closely examining the fe-
male uterus to enable him to write on one subject as lie
had done; all that he intended to assert was, that such
knowledge was rare and extremely defective; at the same
time it was true, that the system of medicine furnishe '
by Hippocrates was most valuable, but it' as to be looked
at only as the walk of a gigantic mind, while in real
science it was necessarily defective. The science first
really came to be studied at Alexandria, under the pa-
tronage and authority of the first Ptolemies, who had the
boldness to set the human prejudices of the time at de-
fiance: as they, however, were succeeded by Kings not pos-
sessing the same spirit of inquiry and intelligenee, the con-
sequence was, that in the time of Galen, the only anatomi-
cal advantages that Alexandria could afford amounted
but to the study of two human skeletons. From the era
pf Galen down to the beginning of the fifteenth century
might pretty fairly be looked upon as an entire blank in
the annals of anatomy, but from that period the progress of
the cultivation of the science Was wonderful ; it became the
custom, 'not to admit bare staternrints of theories, unless
they could be supported by strict process of induction and
examination of the subject; and yet, at the' same time, it
was necessary to admit that dissection was for a long time
too much confined to the few; mad, indeed, it was only
lately that it had been fairly introduced into this country as
a general pursuit for all who studied medicine, so that on
this.head,.at least, we had a right to say that our age was the
real age of improvement. A great deal of the value that,
was now attached to actual dissection was to be attributed
to theexertions of the eminent Hunter ; for it was lie that
had taught that none ought to be admitted, even to the lowest
walks in medicine and chirurgery, without a close study of
the science of anatomy ; and this now had become so univer-
sal, things were so entirely on the footing that they ought to
be, that quackery was no longer able to find room to flourish
even in medicine, which for so long a time had been its
nursery and strong hold. Hunter had declared that no
man could be a physician without a full knowledge of ana-
tomy ; but if this science were so important to physicians,
what must it be to surgeons? To them it was the light
that illumined their path—the spirit that armed their heart
and their hand with firmness, and enabled them to cut
with decision into the most vital parts: by means of this
science they were enabled to give sight to the blind, and
to rescue the dying man even from the very verge of the
grave : the patient whose life was saved from the threaten-
ing of a strangulated hernia, the miserable wretch who
was relieved from the torture of stone in the bladder, the
blind man who was rendered capable of beholding all that
was beautiful and loyely in nature, owed their relief and