A lady, now world-famous, once said to me before she began her noble career: ‘We Englishwomen can study anything under the sun that we desire to acquire. Not the slightest obstacle is placed in the way of our becoming learned to any extent; but any attempt to turn the knowledge to account, to work with it, is met with the bitterest opposition, is ridiculed, sneered at, frowned down. Yet the greatest impetus to study, the natural issues of study, lie in some noble career.’
It is from this tendency of human mind to pour its knowledge into some definite form that our Medical College, with its broad practical uses, may prove so valuable as a centre for scientific study. As it becomes older and stronger it will spread into those collateral branches as botany, zoology, comparative anatomy, which will form so many points of union for the professional and non-professional. Classes would naturally form in connection with it for nursing, sanitary visiting, for botanical and other excursions. There is no limit to its practical usefulness if the spirit that animates it be earnest, truthful, and intelligent.
We enter, then, upon our college work with a bright hope that stretches beyond the college walls into the homes and cities around; into the higher civilization of the future as well as the present.
Our excellent Faculty, in entire accordance with these views, commence their patient and laborious work with a sustained enthusiasm which recognises the difficulties in our way, but is resolved to conquer them. They share the large and liberal views of modern medicine. They belong to no ‘pathy,’ to no narrow and bigoted sect. They are members of that great catholic community of science which, from the ‘Father of Medicine’ onwards, in every age and country, under the most diverse practical forms, has sought for truth through observation, experiment and calm deduction; has proved all things, and held fast to that which is good.
We invite the co-operation of all in this noble work. Especially do we invite the co-operation of women. United action is of immense importance in so arduous an undertaking as this. We will do everything in our power to conciliate diverse interests. Principle only must not be sacrificed. The College must be an honest and earnest attempt to give to women the very highest education that modern science will afford. It is on this ground that union must take place. This school is the only one that the profession has confidence in, the only one it has sanctioned. It has laid its broad foundation by fifteen years of patient work, and it will quickly rise into an edifice of noble proportions if all friendly helpers will unite in its construction.
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH
A Lecture delivered in 1871
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH
The words ‘the Religion of Health’ convey a profound meaning to the physician who has spent a lifetime in relieving physical suffering. I will try and state what those words seem to me to imply.