Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/424

 province of the intelligent physician. And how usefully such knowledge may be turned to the benefit of mankind I need not, I am sure, remind Madras, which has not yet forgotten how the bold and sagacious words of its Sanitary Commissioner spoken in time saved, during the past famine, most probably hundreds and thousands of lives of our poor fellow-subjects.

But can I pass over the subject of food without making some allusion to the late dreadful famine which has visited this land ? Pardon me the wretched platitude, but without food we cease to exist; this is too self-evident, but what does not seem so self-evident, although equally true, is that man can, by his ingenuity and the right application of science, do much to avert, if not altogether prevent, these ca- lamitous visitations. I am not going to suggest we can put spots on the sun, if it is really owing to the non-maculation of that luminary, we are indebted to the failure of our monsoons. But the sun is not an invention of to-day, and I may be allowed, with the greatest respect for my friend Mr. Pogson, to say I am with those who hold that that theory is not yet proven. But what history indubitably teaches us is that, whereas in the dark ages Europe, as I said before, was one recurring scene of pestilences and famines, famines under improved means of cultivation have practically ceased to exist. Some harvests, of course, are less plentiful than others, and occasionally there is partial dis- tress, but famines such as we have had, are now, I may say, unknown. In the British Isles we have had no famine since 1847-48, when the potato failure caused such distress in Ireland. Now what was the course pursued by the people of England after this famine ? I don^t remember that they troubled themselves much about spots on the sun, but spots on Irish cultivation were very effectually rubbed out — the whole system of agriculture was changed. Agricultural Colleges were started and an amount of attention directed to the food supply of the people which eventuated in almost changing the face of the country. Nor must you suppose that, in the British Isles, farming, as in this country, is relegated to the lower classes only — as

"In ancient times the sacred plough employed The king and awful fathers of mankind; And some, with whom compared your insect tribes Are but the beings of a summer's day, Have held the scale of Empire, ruled the storm Of mighty war! then with unwearied hand, Disdaining little delicacies, seized The plough, and greatly independent lived,"