Page:The Hunterian Oration, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons on the 14th of February, 1834 (IA b31879792).pdf/7

3 constantly interrogated nature by experiment, his inquiries embracing all the principal processes of the animal economy, both in health and disease. He collected the lights issuing from these various sources, and threw them in full force on one grand object, the science and art of surgery. Such was his conception of our profession, and of the means by which it ought to be studied and improved.

He did not limit his notion of surgery by the etymological import of the word, which means. manual operation. Surgery, it is true, often employs the hands; but it provides much more important occupation for the head. Had it been, as its Greek original implies, a species of handicraft, quod in therapeia mechanicum, as some learned blockhead has defined it, the genius of a HUNTER would not have been required to unfold its principles; such minds as those of POTT and ABERNETHY, of DESAULT and BICHAT, of RICHTER and SCARPA, would not have delighted in its cultivation and illustration.

So far was Mr. HUNTER from considering operations and manual proceedings as the sole or even principal business of a surgeon, that he seems to have held this department of the profession, comparatively, in low estimation. "Operations," says he, by which we mutilate a patient whom we cannot cure, are an acknowledgment of the imperfection of our art." The author of such a sentiment was not likely to seek for occasions of display