MEDICAL STUDENTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3861, 13 March 1928, Page 9

MEDICAL STUDENTS.

YEAR’S WORK COMMENCED. ADDRESS BY MR VICTOR BONNEY. The inaugural address to the medical faculty was delivered at the Allen Hall of the University buildings on Wednesday morning by Mr Victor Bonney, the eminent gynaecologist. Sir Lindo Ferguson, dean of the medical faculty, presided, and there Were present members of the University Council and a large number of doctors, medical students, and others. Sir Lindo Ferguson said b e had great pleasure in welcoming Mr Bonney.—(Applause.) Mr Bonney was one of the leading surgeons in his own particular line in th e world, and he had very kindly consented to rearrange his tour in New Zealand in order to come to Dunedin to speak at their inaugural ceremony. It was a great privilege to have a man of Mr Bonney’s calibre amongst them, and it was not often that they had a chance of listening to such a distinguished surgeon. —(Applause.) Mr Bonney, who was received with loud applause, said that th* object of his address was to help them, his younger brothers of the craft, to make good.- The fundamental principle of success had been most perfectly summed up by Kipling in his “ Man From Gloucester ” : “ They asked me how I did it, and I gave them Scriptur e text— You keep your light so shining a little in front of the rest.”

The older members of the profession had been over the country before, and coming to the height of experience, they could * see the main routes to success much more plainly than the students —a band of explorers—who were setting foot in the country for the first time. Life had been likened to a battle, and it was a battle, though no lethal weapons were employed. Instead, all th e fighting was done bv the wonderful little cerebral cells. He believed, and he always had believed, that th e total number of these units were of an average amount in a man’s brain, so that the students started with just about the same amount of raw material in their heads. Of course, there were exceptions—potential Napoleons and Newtons on the one side and congenital idiots on the other.—(Laughter.) What, however, was gjiing to make the difference between tnem as individuals was the number of these higher intellectual units that they could conscript and train. He used the "’ord conscript, ’ for there was no doubt that, so far as the average man was concerned, h e could only get the cells to Junction after a great deal of effort. So far. as “ conscription ” applied to the ladies, he had little to say, because he k? al Tery little ex Perience of them, out he had been informed that less effort was required.—(Laughter.) Why should a man shirk intensive training of his higner cerebral cells ? asked the speaker. What was the -motive for aspiration or ambition ? It was aspiration that a man made the effort merely for the sake of achievement, and ambition made it not merely for the sake of achievement, but for what the achievement would bring. The one was altrustic, and the other egoist. But it did not matter whether it was the one or the other. Without one or the other no mail had gone very far, so that if they could not aspire he wanted to be ambitious, or, as the most successful men had done, join the two together in such proportions as their natures would allow. If they gave up that aspiration or motive they had to reckon with the lady they were going to honour, or perhaps was going to honour them.— (Laughter.) ' When Omar Khayyam had sung about paradise being made with a loaf of bread and a flash of wine, and “ thou ” under the shade of a palm tree, he was talking' Of a lady friend, not his wife. — (Loud laughter.) Seeing that they always started on the assumption of a number of high intellectual cells, the-great question was how were they, going to train these cells so as to make a cerebral army of the • biggest possible efficiency. To attain the major success, the legitimate public success professionally, he would counsel them to train a greater proportion of their intellectual units to the end of their lives. They could look cn this as the infantry of their cerebral army. The infantry did most of the hard work, and reaped less of the rewards, because it was a fact that the great outstanding success,: in a worldly sense, was very rarely achieved by high technical ability alone. That- was what they would have to remember—that their whole training

work consisted of many more branches s—. than the infantry alone. A man might ?be able, to come out on top, but the Chances were all against it. He was always up against some other fellow with nearly as much technical knowledge and possessing, in addition, graces, accomplishments, and arts which were going to down the other fellow for a time. He wished them, therefore, to extend their mental processes, so to speak, over many things, besides the actual facts which belonged to their profession. All knowledge interlocked, and ideas and principles were interchangeable between the various arts and sciences. Many great discoveries had germinated from seeds which had been brought from other departments of intellectual activity. He wanted the students present to spread themselves over all knowledge so far as time and opportunity would permit, and ■ not merely deal with that which was auxiliary and ancillary to medicine. They..wanted to bear in mind, no matter how good ..one might be at this or that, that success was worth having only if it

were founded on great, big, pukka professional ability. He would not deny that many climbed very high on very little, and swelled themselves up to immense stature, covering a very fragile skeleton of technical ability with flummery, boost, and gas. They would go amongst some of these in their journey through the world, but they need not be frightened of them, because they very rarely attacked a man, and scarcely ever competed with one. If they cleared out the whole race to-morrow they would find that a new generation of the class to which he had referred had arisen, because charlatans, quacks, and humbugs were really part of humanity as much as the pukka worker was. He did not know that one should belittle these people, They had started with the same number of intellectual units as others had, but instead of marshalling those units to the acquirement of arts, graces, and accomplishments they had inverted the order, and had made an army in which the departments of espionage, policy, and propaganda formed the real fighting forces. It wa« an example of adaptation to special purposes. There was another reason for furnishing the mind with knowledge, and that was insurance against boredom in old age. If a man furnished his mind with knowledge he acquired a great many interests, and when he got old and passed out of the regular sphere of work he was still able to keep in touch with youth, though he might be bald or though his hair might be very thin, or gray, or stone-white. Some of them might wonder whether all the time and effort necessary to achieve success were worth the result which in the most favourable circumstances was going to take years to materialise. Old age was a horizon which continually receded from them as they advanced so long as the body was healthy. In youth one was so surrounded by anticipations, experiences, and pleasures that, like a walk in a wood, there was not mucti view in view at the start, but as time w-ent on the wood thinned out, until at last one could see quite plainly in front of him the country he had to traverse, bounded by the skyline where the journey was to end. It was not until one reached that point that he could be sure whether the path which he had been following was leading to the verge of pleasing country rolling gently upwards to wonderful heights, or whether it was leading him to a sand desert, with everything worth having behind and nothing in front. It was a wonderful, glorious asset, youth. If they invested wisely it was going to give them an income increasingly rich as the years went by, but if they scattered it in twopenny" halfpenny activities they would be bankrupt by the time they were 40. They were entering for the first time on the battlefield on which their lives were to be spent, and the one form of success which would gain them the applause of the splendid profession to which they now belonged was in leaving their calling ' better by their own efforts that it was before they entered it. He represented the oldest of all the branches of medicine and surgery, because the first recorded surgical operation concerned the birth of Eve. She was, he believed, the first example of extra uterine gestation.—(Laughter.) Gynaecology was a wonderful branch of their profession. It was the most important of all of them, because it dealt not with the individual previously, but with the race. He put forward the plea for them to bear that in mind, through their student days and afterwards. It was, he believed, the most important of all the branches of medicine and surgery. It was the finest surgical field of all. the surgical fields —that applied not only ot gynaecology but to obstetrics, for the bulk of obstetrics was purely surgical. By reason of the fact that two lives were at stake instead of one the practice of obstetrics required more skill than the vast majority of surgical operations. Obstetrics should therefore attract the highest standard of man who deliberately chose the difficult and steep path for the glory of overcoming the difficulties. They could not all be obstetricians and gynaecologists, because if they were they would all starve —(laughter)—but he hoped that amongst the audience in front of him that day were a number who would distinguish themselves in these two branches. He hoped that the few words he had given them that day would help them towards success. They must emulate the great ones in medicine in their work, and Tf at the end of their time it could be recorded of them that they had built one single stone into the structure of the temple of medicine they and their work and their honour would travel down the ages together.—(Applause.) Mr "T. K. Sidey, M.P. (chancellor of the University) said that before expressing thanks to Mr Bonney he would like to take the opportunity of extending, on behalf of al] present, a very cordial welcome' home to the dean of the medical faculty, Sir Lindo Ferguson.—(Applause.) They were all glad to see him looking so fit and well. His special object was to express their thanks to Mr Bonney for his address. He wa s sure he could say that they had been greatly privileged in being able to listen to Mr Bonney’s words of wisdom, and they thanked him for his very practical and happy address. He had noticed in the paper that Mr Bonney had acknowledged the high standard of the medical profession in New Zealand, and also that he had learned something from the local doctors. •Mr Sidey said he felt that Mr Bonney’s presence in New Zealand just now was particularly opportune, because the subjects in which he was more directly interested —gyniecology and obstetrics—had never been.’ properly recognised before. He could, say for the council of the Univer-, sity that it recognised • the great value of this matter. The council was always bothered by the question of £ s d, and there was an opportunity : just now for generous citizens to endow' a chair. That had' been done for both medicine and surgery, and he trusted that the publicity

given to the subjects of gynaecology and obstetrics would call for some response. They appreciated very much the address to which they had listened. It must have had an inspiring effect on the students, and he was sure they would resolve to do better in the work that lay before them. A hearty vote of thanks to Mr Bonney was carried by acclamation. The male students brought the proceedings to a close with three cheesr for Mr Bonney and the dancing of a Maori haka.