Address in Surgery

Abstract

TISSUE RESISTANCE AND ANTISEPTICISM. TwE,NrY years have passed away since the place which I have the honour to occupy to-day was filled by one of the brightest ornaments of British surgery, Robert William Smith. They who had the pleasure to listen to the address which he then delivered-clear, logical, -and chastely eloquent-can appreciate the difficulty under which I labour; for what is there that I could hope either to think, or write, or speak, which could at all approach the learning, the sagacity, or eager search after scientific truth which adorned that gifted Irishman. The Pathological Society of Dublia, of which he was the mainstay and the very life, was unequalled by any similar society in the world. There we used to see, in the theatre adjacent to where we are now assembled, Crampton, Stokes, Corrigan, Graves, and Adams, crowning the labours of each week by careful study, each succeeding Saturday, of the various examples of disease and illustrations of pathology which had oecurred in the hospitals of Dublin, while the best and most intelligent of our students crowded the benches above, and hung with eagerness on the words of wisdom which fell from these great men. The merging of this Society in the Academy of Medicine may have raised the standard of pathology as a science, but, with all respect, I beg to think that it has not maintained the zeal for pathological knowledge or extended the study of this most important branch of our training.