PREFACE.
OF the following small collection of Papers,
the two first were written for a work called
'The Transactions of the
Royal College of
Physicians
,'
and were published in the fourth
and fifth volumes of the series. The third
was meant for the same work, but it was
read at an evening meeting of the
College
,
which was attended by many eminent characters in the church and in the law, as well
as a numerous body of the profession.
The subsequent ones were written expressly for a mixed audience, to whom it was
probable that a strictly professional paper
would be less acceptable than one on a
medical subject capable of being illustrated
by literature, (a common bond of connexion
of all the liberal professions,) or which admitted of a discussion of the duties and
offices of a physician in that last scene of
human life in which every man, sooner or
later, must appear and bear his part. The
conduct of a physician on whom is fixed the
only hope of saving life, and on whom the
dying look often rests before the eye is
closed for ever, may fairly be thought
interesting to every hearer.
Papers so addressed to an audience have
something of a rhetorical character about
them, and approach the nature of the Latin
Orations which follow. The first of these
was given many years ago in commemoration
of the Benefactors and eminent Physicians
of the College; the second on occasion
of opening the new building, in
1825
.
The account of what appeared on opening
the Coffin of
King Charles I
. is a reprint
of a former paper, and the drawing which
accompanies it is a faithful representation
of the countenance of the King at that time,
(
1813
.)
