Page:The Hunterian Oration, delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons ... February 14, 1817 (IA b22009358).pdf/29

21 honour of priority is due to our brethren on the continent, and is freely acknowledged. Hospitals for. the reception of poor sick and maimed j,ersons, had been many years established in this metropolis; but it does not appear that until near the end of the seventeenth century, the founders and supporters of those institutions had any other object in view than to relieve the wretchedness and to cure the maladies of their inmates. Until this time, young men who were intended for the’ profession of Surgery, had no other means of acquiring the necessary information than what could be obtained from the instruction and practice of the individuals under whose tuition they were placed, except in the few instances when they went abroad for some knowledge in Anatomy. In this deplorably �