The collective investigation record / edited for the Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association by Professor Humphry and F.A. Mahomed.

  • Humphry, George Murray, Sir, 1820-1896.
Date:
1883-4
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The collective investigation record / edited for the Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association by Professor Humphry and F.A. Mahomed. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    9 certain persons, and that prevalence of fashion, that blind adop- tion of shifting views and modes of treatment, which tends so much to repress thought and stifle inquiry. The collection of information upon a grand scale, which has the double effect of stimulating many investigators and of drawing facts from many sources, not as a substitute for, hut as an addition to, individual research, has long been felt to be one means of meeting the difficulties and disadvantages just mentioned; and it has occasionally been attempted on a small scale, in a more or less spasmodic manner, and usually with the result of disappointing those who took part in it. It was obvious, however, that the work ought to be done; and it was also obvious that the British Medical Association, with its enormous force of numbers, its Journal, its organization of branches, its funds gathered by good management and economy, afforded an opportunity, such as had never before existed, of doing it. Both Dr. Arthur Bansome and Dr. Mahomed urged this upon the Association in letters which appeared in the Journal (Oct. 8, 1864, and Jan. 3 and 10, 1880) ;* and feeling that the Cambridge meeting in 1880 was a fitting opportunity for bringing the subject forward, I ventured to do so in my presidential address (Journal, Aug. 14, 1880, p. 244), pointing out the undeveloped capacities for good collective work which the Association possessed, and the advantages to the Association, the profession, and the public, which would accrue from the successful utilization of those capacities. I felt that if the members could combine for social and political purposes, they ought certainly not to hesitate to do so for the promotion of the science and practice of medicine. It was a source of great gratification to me and to all who had been anxious for such a movement, and at the same time it was an earnest of success, that immediately, on the conclusion of my address, Mr. Husband, who is so deservedly respected for his long and great services to the Association, gave the first practical impulse. After saying that “ no more valuable suggestion had come before the Association, and it was to be hoped that this one would, like seed upon good ground, be cultivated and bring forth * Dr. Pearse, of Haslemerc, in a letter to the Journal of Jan. 19, 1881, fore- shadowed, as possible, much such an organization as is now at work.