The Popes and Science: The History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own TimeWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Religion
The Popes and Science: The History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Popes; Religion and science -- History; Science -- History
among them in the vernacular tongue." [Footnote 26]
[Footnote 26: As showing how professional jealously may exist in
such ways in the modern times as to hinder progress, the following
paragraph, which is the opening portion of Professor Allbutt's
address, has seemed to me to deserve quotation here. It will
illustrate a phase of the subject that is probably utterly
unexpected by those unfamiliar with the inner history of medicine
in our time, but which is not so surprising to physicians who know
the jealousy with which men guard their specialties from what they
consider the interference of others, in hospital work and in
teaching, though this exclusiveness often proves detrimental both
to the breadth of development of the student and to the good
health of the patient.
"It was, I think, in the year 1864, when I was a novice on the
Honorary Staff of the Leeds General Infirmary, that the unsurgical
division of us was summoned in great solemnity to discuss a method
of administration of drugs by means of a needle. This method
having obtained some vogue, it behooved those who practiced 'pure'
medicine to decide whether the operation were consistent with the
traditions of purity. For my part, I answered that the method had
come up early, if not originally, in St. George's Hospital, and in
the hands of a house physician--Dr. C. Hunter; that I had
accustomed myself already to the practice and proposed to continue
it; moreover, that I had recently come from the classes of
Professor Trousseau, who, when his cases demanded such treatment,
did not hesitate himself to perform paracentesis of the pleura, or
even incision of this sac, or of the pericardium. As, for lack not
of will but of skill and nerve, I did not intend myself to perform
even minor operations, my heresy, as one in thought only, was
indulgently ignored, and we were set free to manipulate the drug
needle if we felt disposed to this humble service."]
{197}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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