An introductory lecture, delivered at the opening of the thirty-eighth course of lectures, in the Medical College of Ohio / by L.M. Lawson.

  • Lawson, L. M. (Leonidas Merion), 1812-1864.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introductory lecture, delivered at the opening of the thirty-eighth course of lectures, in the Medical College of Ohio / by L.M. Lawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    sole purpose of self-aggrandizement; and it will be remarked that in all those departments of natural and moral science, in which the imposition would not lead to pecuniary gain, no attempt is made to impose on the credulous or superstitious. Thus, in the departments of astronomy, geology, chemistry, natural history, and kindred sciences, the elaboration of false systems could not be made to yield a pecuniary gain, and therefore offer no temptation to those who live by falsehood and deception. And thus, certain sciences having remained exempt from the defilement of sacriligious hands, are regarded as true beyond the possibility of doubt. What would the public say if a mountebank should elevate a new order of telescope to the heavens, and declare that your astronomer on Mt. Adams, with all others, was entirely mistaken ; that the law of gravitation was a mere fable ; the centrifugal and centripetal forces nothing but the vagaries of a disordered fancy ; that the erratic comets were merely the fiery steeds from Mount Parnassus bearing messengers to some remote colony—and, in fact, that the moon ivas a huge Western Reserve cheese! Such a proclamation, I am quite sure, would be received with jeers and laughter, and the proclaimer declared a fit subject for the lunatic asylum. And why ? Not because the great public happen to possess any very accurate knowledge on these abstruse points, but for the more simple reason that astronomy has offered no inducements for the deceiver's genius, and has, therefore, remained an uncontra- dicted science. And yet, this science of astronomy rests on no more demonstrable basis, is made up of no more indubitable facts, than the science of medicine. If Grecian astronomy had her Hipparchus, Grecian medicine had her Hippocrates. While Copernicus, in the 16th century, discovers the true motion of the earth, Harvey in the 17th century, discovers the circulation of the blood. If Newton deduced the law of gravitation from the planetary motions discovered by Kepler, and the cental forces of Huygens ; so Bichat, by the powers