Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System
Authors: A. H. Bennett
Journal: BMJ (1888)

after the operation, remains inyperfect health.But such advances in operative surgery, though o importance to the world as tending to preserve life, will never alone serve to support a great reputation.Hunter was far more than a mere operation-inventor; though this, when it can be shown to have been deduced from previous observations, is not a thing altogether to be despised.lie was far greater than this.He was above all the greatest suirgical philosopher that every lived.lIe was constantly searching for new facts, and adding to his museum preparations which acted as a kind of index to those facts; and from these facts, when accu- mulated in sufficient numbers, he deduced general laws.Thus he worked a revolution in surgical pathology, and he raised the seience of surgery from the doubtful position that it occupied b)efore his time to a level with the sister science of medicine.Over what a desert the river of his thoughts has since flowed!How many diseases and deformities, then thouglht to be incurable, have since.been brought within the range of surgical relief!The old lumber room filled witlh incurable diseases and misunderstood pnthology, that was left to the care of medicine, has since been ransacked over and found to contain much that surgery could relieve or cure.Within our own time the kidney has become rL surgical organ, the gall-bladder has had to yield up its obnoxious stones to the captivating influence of the surgeon's knife, the stomach and intestines, the lung, and even the brain itself, have in turn been brouight within the range of surgery.To aid us in our labours, two great discoveries have been made since Hiunter's time: the introduction of chloroform, which makes operations painless, and the use of antiseptics, which renders them safe.But in spite of all tlhe great advances made since his time, Hunter's name and Ilunter's fame shine through them all.So far from detracting from the merits of his labours, they simply add lustre to his; achievements.Btut we must not be deterred by the contemplation of his greatness from exerting such talents as we may possess in the humble sphere that we may occupy.Though it is allowed to few like Ihunter to touch immortality on this side o eternity.yet let us take courage in the tlhouight that there is nothing in Nature, however minute or obscure, that has not some power over its immediate surroundings.Witlh this thouight, let me close my address in the words of a plhilosopher 1 have already quoted: "All things are engaged in writing their history.The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow.The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain, the river its cliannel in the soil, the nnimal its hones in the stratuim, the fern and leaf their modest epitaph in the coal.The falling drop makes its sculpture in the sand or stone.Not a foot steps into the snow, or along the ground, but prints in characters more or less lasting a map of his march.Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memory of its fellows, and in hiis own manners and face.The air is full of sounds, the sky of tokens, the ground is all memoranda and signa- tures, and every object covered over with hiints which speak to the intelligent.n