36 THE HUNTERIAN ORATION.
we have now, “no idols successively worshipped with the changing spirit of the times: where in the same individual, the chemist and the physiologist, are con- spicuously united, as they are in the person of the dis- tinguished author of one of our Bridgewater Treatises, * the lover of science must contemplate, with pleasure, his philosophic reasonings on the animal processes in health and disease.
The ancient Egyptians, it is recorded, ordained by law, a solemn canvass of the actions and characters of their dead before competent judges, to regulate the amount of respect due to their memory. Guided by the same feeling, the Royal Academy of Medicine in Paris have decreed, that no permanent record of a deceased associate be made until five years have elapsed, so to guard against the influence of Feeling, and to wait the unerring operation of Time in the ad- justment of every thing to its place. Nevertheless, in a confident spirit of truth and impartiality, I venture to speak to the honoured memory of an individual, once a public character, and but recently departed from amongst us.—History, it is well said, in holding forth the examples of past ages, furnishes our most impressive lessons of instruction. Welcome intelli-
- Dr. Prout.
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