Page:Introductory lecture delivered at the Middlesex Hospital, October 1st, 1877 (IA b22447258).pdf/18

18 becomes a part of our higher being must be taught to do their work as highly trained and willing assistants.

How essential it is for the eye to be taught to recognise instantly a change of form or of colour. It is by comparing an injured limb with the sound one that the surgeon often learns by a look the nature of the injury or discovers by their tint the most appropriate management of the contents of a hernial sac.

The ear, too, must be educated; for on a right appreciation of their sounds the physician learns the state of the great organs within the chest.

By the sense of touch, moreover, the practitioner is enabled to detect the presence of a deep-seated abscess or the temperature of a joint.

And although I must grant you the delicate filaments of the special nerve of the smell are often offended in our daily work, yet I venture to assert that not one of you would wish to dispense with this useful faculty even for an hour, for it often assists us in our investigations, and should be ever on the alert to warn us of noxious influences which might be hurtful to our patients.

We should endeavour, then, to educate our senses, for their capabilities are great. As the blind man acquires a touch surpassing our experience, so should we strive to develope these half expanded powers. I have often thought that John Hunter owed much of his great fame to the manual skill he gained as a cabinet maker in his early life.

We should bear in mind that, although the skill