Page:Thruston speech upon the progress of medicine 1869.djvu/7



The Art of Healing is served by many willing hands. The God of Medicine, like the Hindoo Vishnu, might have been represented as a benign and far-reaching power, with many arms outstretched to supply the wants of men. There is, in truth, no study that opens up so many avenues of knowledge, no research that makes use of so many of the rich veins of thought, connected with other regions of Science.

So many and various are the materials relating to Biology or the Science of Life, recently brought to light by scientific labourers of all kinds, that in attempting to give an account of the progress of medicine, the difficulty of the task will be, how to limit the range of our quest so as to give a sufficient explanation of the selected subjects, and to avoid a mere catalogue of names and discoveries.

I propose, therefore, at this time to speak only of the additions to Physiological Science which have been drawn within very recent periods from Chemistry, and the other Physical Sciences.

This age has truly been abundant in the materials of which science is built up—rich in well-attested facts, and in the principles resulting from their colligation: in facts,