Arthur Hensman

“ Whilst we extend the sweep of our knowledge by means of the microscope, the ophthalmoscope, and the thermometer, let us watch, lest our own organs of perception, best instruments of all, created by an Eternal Will, and step by step evolved, through lower forms to near perfection, be unequal to the requirements of these higher duties.
Every side of the intellect must be trained, every right capacity of the body must be developed, if we would work to good purpose. ”

“ But anatomy is embraced in the needs of other crafts besides the surgeon's. The artist too requires a knowledge of anatomy for the successful prosecution of his art. Yet we must bear in mind that long before the scalpel had displayed the wonders that lay hidden in the bodies of man and beast, cunning hands had laboured, and not in vain, to perpetuate their form in stone or in marble. ”

“ Contrasting our own profession, the profession of medicine with the other so-called learned professions, it must be obvious, I think, to all of you that, whilst the faculties and powers of the mind are exercised alike in all, the special cultivation of the senses is necessary in ours alone. Those senses which are the avenues through which alone a knowledge of the outer world flows into and becomes a part of our higher being must be taught to do their work as highly trained and willing assistants. ”

“ One almost shudders at a first glance at the number of subjects embraced in the medical curriculum, and the amount of time you must devote to each to gain a fair knowledge even of their rudiments. I anticipate havoc in the ranks of this army of subjects, and prophesy the exclusion of several from the medical course, for I am not alone in thinking they never ought to have gained a foothold there, not because such knowledge is unimportant, for of no branch of knowledge can this be said at the present day ”

“ But the painter, with that suggestive genius belonging to his art, has, I see, introduced into his work a distant gleam of sunshine, fit emblem of the light of that skill and the warmth of that charity which ever characterise the noble profession you are entering to-day, and which we know full well have not been lacking in those who, for more than a century, have manfully striven within these walls to dispel the darkness of sin and the gloom of human misery and suffering. ”

“ We should endeavour, then, to educate our senses, for their capabilities are great. As the blind man acquires a touch surpassing our experience, so should we strive to develope these half expanded powers. I have often thought that John Hunter owed much of his great fame to the manual skill he gained as a cabinet maker in his early life.
We should bear in mind that, although the skill of the optician gained for us a new realm, outside the range of unaided vision, when he constructed the microscope, yet to see aright the eye must have a special training. ”

“ To the busy practitioner the rapid sketch of a morbid growth or the mere outline of a diseased limb may convey to the mind more than pages of careful notes.
To those who teach good diagrams are absolutely essential, and none are so good as those fresh from the hand of the teacher himself.
Drawing may be said pre-eminently to cultivate the eye as to form, size and relation; and it certainly educates the touch in a manner scarcely second to the use of the scalpel in the dissecting room. ”

“ New schools of medicine and new hospitals were rising, and the officers connected with this hospital were desirous—I am quoting their own words:—"That the liberal support which the Institution receives from a generous public should be repaid to society by a continual provision of skilful practitioners, made such by a knowledge to be acquired in the Hospital, being convinced that there is an intimate connection between the promotion of its immediate purposes and the extension of that science on which the relief and prevention of disease depend." ”

“ Now, turning to the works of the ancient Greeks, we see how faithful and how true they were to nature. The great toe of the Greek foot is as truly proportioned as the little toe, and the relations of the three middle toes as contrasted with the first and last. ”

“ Whilst the medical schools have grown up as necessary offshoots of those charitable institutions which everewhere mark the progress of a civilised people, having been created for the education of a special class of men, we must not forget that they have had a still wider influence and use. ”

“ Yet Wollaston years after passed his beam of light through a slit instead of a round hole, and the lines of the solar spectrum were for the first time visible. It was still left to Fraüenhoffer and others to interpret their meaning, and to-day men of science are able to speak of the elements which enter into the composition of distant worlds, and you or I by the aid of the spectroscope could detect infallibly the presence of blood in solution, in amount so small that our microscopes would be useless in the search. To take an illustration which more nearly concerns us to day. ”

“ For have they not found fitting employment for the energies of many, who in their own departments stand in the foremost rank of scientific investigators? The scientific discoverer must ever lead the way. Applied science, coming after, takes up the thread of discovery, and once guided into a useful channel industries are created and commerce spreads. ”

“ The artist seems to have, here and there, caught the spirit of deeper truths which, ages after, the labours of the comparative anatomist have established.
The few examples of unmutilated Greek feet which remain to us, if compared with the conventional foot of the present day, will serve to explain my meaning.
The great toe of the human foot is developed, as you are aware, in adaptation to man's progress in the upright position. So characteristic of man, nevertheless it is the first to dwindle and disappear in the descending scale of animal forms. ”

“ How essential it is for the eye to be taught to recognise instantly a change of form or of colour. It is by comparing an injured limb with the sound one that the surgeon often learns by a look the nature of the injury or discovers by their tint the most appropriate management of the contents of a hernial sac. ”

“ You should, if possible, sketch all you see under the microscope, and make outline drawings of your dissections. Dr. Acland has, I think, very wisely insisted on the value of drawing. In an address, delivered nearly ten years ago, he said, “ Of course you all practise out-of-door sketching when you can. Sir Charles Bell, Seymour Haden, Henry Monro Chambers, and Solly, have shown you the way, and if you do not follow, when you are older you will make bad diagrams and will be worse lecturers than you might have been.”
But the art of drawing has a far more practical bearing. ”

“ As students you will, of course, receive without doubt much that you are taught as absolutely true and certain. But you should never fail to ascertain the reasons for believing what you are told where it is not self-evident. ”

“ And although I must grant you the delicate filaments of the special nerve of the smell are often offended in our daily work, yet I venture to assert that not one of you would wish to dispense with this useful faculty even for an hour, for it often assists us in our investigations, and should be ever on the alert to warn us of noxious influences which might be hurtful to our patients. ”

“ But I might weary you with illustrations, all tending to show how the purely scientific worker has often supplied the material which, later on, others have utilised.
Great discoveries are not made at a leap; they follow slowly after years of patient labour. ”

“ When it is remembered that, in many surgical operations, the knife is carried in curves or in straight lines, surely it must be some satisfaction to the surgeon to feel that his eye has been previously educated in these things and will safely guide his hand. ”