Page:The Hunterian Oration, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons on the 14th of February, 1834 (IA b31879792).pdf/6

2 This anniversary, then, is not for the dead, but for the living. It is designed to hold up, both to students and to proficients in surgery, a bright ex- ample of ardent thirst after knowledge, of unre- mitting industry, of disinterested pursuit of science; and thus to afford an incentive to the cultivation of those peaceful arts, which are a source of unmixed benefit to mankind, and of unalloyed satisfaction and reputation to their honourable professors.

When we reflect on the vast extent of research which MR. HUNTER executed, as disclosed to us by his museum, and his writings, manuscript and printed; when we consider that he was a surgeon, and that his aim was to elucidate and improve surgery, we shall be able to collect the opinion he must have entertained on a point much debated and hitherto unsettled, viz. the nature and extent of this branch of the profession. No other individual, either in ancient or modern times, has attempted, to say nothing of performing, so wide a range of investigation. He examined with minuteness the anatomy and physiology of man; he studied the structure and functions of living beings in all their varieties, and extended his researches to the vegetable kingdom, as being endowed with life though in an inferior degree; he observed the phenomena and traced the effects of disease in all organs. Proceeding on the golden rule of taking nothing upon trust, of examining every thing for himself, he