Memoirs of John Abernethy / With a View of His Lectures, His Writings, and Character; with Additional Extracts from Original Documents, Now First Published

by George Macilwain

We might have traced the effects of the apprentice system into the more covert sites of its operations, as exemplified in the abortive or mischievous legislation observed at different times in the College of Surgeons of London; or have extended the catalogue we formerly exposed as taking place in the Royal Med. and Chir. Society up to the influence—proh pudor!—that it is allowed to exert in the Councils of the Royal Society; but our so doing here would have led us into discussions which are irrelevant or unnecessary to our present objects. In the meantime, it is useful to remark that there are two sides to all questions. If, in our corporate bodies, we see the prurient appetencies of trade usurping the place of the lofty aspirations of science,—if we see this carried to the extent of men allowing themselves to receive money without rendering any intelligible account of its amount,—let us not forget that there is a Public—aye, and a Profession too—which calmly allows such things.

Let us also reflect on those numerous instances, in human affairs, of things being only accomplished when there is a real necessity for them; and, again, whether that necessity for a higher and purer administration of corporate privileges and scientific distinctions may not alone reside in a higher and purer moral standard on the part of the public and the profession. Those who, in a worldly sense, suffer from the system, have at least the consolation that they are not obliged to participate in the administration of that which they disapprove; and that the losses they so sustain are perhaps necessary tests of their having achieved proper motives. No better proof of the sincerity and earnestness of our love of science can be afforded us, than a patient and thoughtful cultivation of it, independently of patronage, position, or other auxiliaries, which too often mask from us the true objects of research, sully the purity of mind by mixtures of questionable motive, or mislead us from the temple of truth to the altar of a fugitive and fallacious ambition. There are indeed signs of a "Delenda est Carthago." As we have said, the point of the wedge is inserted, and a very little extension of public information will at no distant period drive it home.

In the meantime, Medical Science, instead of being in a position to receive every quackery as a means of demonstrating the superior beauty of truth, by placing it in contrast with error, is obliged to regard any absurdity, however gross, as one of the hydra-headed fallacies through which we are to evolve what is true, only by the circuitous plan of exhausting the resources of hypothesis and conjecture: whilst sweeping epidemics, which, wholesomely regarded, should be looked on reverently as besoms of destruction, are hailed by the observant as melancholy, but necessary, impulses, to drive us to the adoption of measures, to which our capital of common sense is not sufficient to induce us to listen.

Neither are the old hospitals the only parts of a defective system. There is no hospital in London that, even yet, has any country establishment for convalescents; whilst of two of those more recently established, one is built over a church-yard; and the other, intended only for the relief of decarbonizing organs, is placed in the immediate neighbourhood of the most smoky metropolis in Europe. Both, therefore, instead of standing out as the most distinguished illustrations of the laws of sanitary and physiological science, being, on the contrary, emphatic examples of their violation.

We are unwilling to conclude this chapter without observing that, notwithstanding the coldness and discussions which threw somewhat of melancholy and shade over Abernethy's retiring days, thus presenting an unwelcome contrast with the more palmy periods of his career—a contrast from which it might have been hoped his conscientious retirement might have spared him,—we yet see how appropriate a preparation it might have been for a transition from the exciting, and adulatory, atmosphere which surrounds a popular and scientific teacher, as compared with the calmness and peace of a life in the country. He was now no more to enter the Hospital Square, where we have so often seen him mobbed, as it were, by the crowding and expectant pupils; no more to be daily addressing audiences who never seemed to tire even with repetitions of that with which many were already familiar; nor any more to see, as occasional visitors, men grown grey in the successful practice of his early lessons, bringing their sons to the same school, and both listening with equal pleasure. There is no doubt that, contrasted with all this, retirement was a great, though now probably a welcome, change. Eminent men unintentionally exert an influence which is not without its evils; and we shall see that of this he was fully aware. Assentation is too much the order of the day. The multitude appear to agree. The few who differ, are apt to be cautious or reserved. If a man is too sensible to be fed with such garbage as direct flattery, there are always tricksters or tacticians, who have a thousand ways of paying homage without detection.

Then, again, those who really admire a man, and are honest,—keep aloof, and shrink from an association with those whom they know, or believe, to be parasites. It thus happens that there are men to whom so few venture to be honest, that the world may present little better than a practical lie. It is a mercy then, when a man's sun is setting, that he be blessed with a little twilight of truth.

There are, in the moral and intellectual constitution, as well as in the physical endowments of Man, beneficent powers of adaptation, which let us gently down to contrasts, which, too sudden, might be painful or destructive.

There is, however, this difference—the external senses have intrinsic powers of adaptation so ready, and perfect, as scarcely to be taken by surprise by any natural transition. The moral and intellectual powers do not appear to possess this electric activity; but require slower gradations of impression, which, by some law in the progress of human affairs, are (as the rule) mercifully supplied.