Page:The Hunterian oration delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, on the fourteenth of February, 1833 (IA b21911952).pdf/5

 THE

HUNTERIAN ORATION

FOR

1833.

Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,

To trace the path, and review the progress of science, in any of its departments, is an occupation of time, and attention, no less useful than agreeable. And surely no retrospective glance can convey more satisfaction to a benevolent mind, than that which regards the rise and progress of Surgery; a study the sole object of which is to diminish the sufferings, and consequently increase the happiness of mankind.

In the most remote ages of antiquity, those who applied themselves to the acquisition of knowledge in Medicine, were held in high respect, and veneration; and we cannot reasonably suppose that the earliest periods of Egyptian intelligence were Jess distinguished, by attention to the study of Medicine, and Surgery, than by devotion to the other �