Annals of medical history . g readto, and always with his pen in his hand withwhich to make notes or comments. He must have passed his whole life in theway Dr. John Moore describes his last a pen in his hand and with hismind turning from his immediatesurroundings to rove to theuttermost parts of the earth,keen for material and crit-ical for thedrawingof far-reaching conclusions. /Every fact, familiar oralien, served him forthinking. When Wil-liam Cheselden (1688-1-52), the Englishsurgeon, and physi-cian to Sir Isaac New-ton, made an artifi-cial pupil on a patientcongenitally blind,th
Annals of medical history . g readto, and always with his pen in his hand withwhich to make notes or comments. He must have passed his whole life in theway Dr. John Moore describes his last a pen in his hand and with hismind turning from his immediatesurroundings to rove to theuttermost parts of the earth,keen for material and crit-ical for thedrawingof far-reaching conclusions. /Every fact, familiar oralien, served him forthinking. When Wil-liam Cheselden (1688-1-52), the Englishsurgeon, and physi-cian to Sir Isaac New-ton, made an artifi-cial pupil on a patientcongenitally blind,thereby supplyinghim with vision, Vol-taire was greatly ex-cited at the discoverythat it took the pa-tient some time toacquire the idea of distance. Apropos of this, he said, It isimpossible to be unhappy through thedeprivation of things of which one has noidea. He possessed, perhaps better than anyone, the capacity to look tilings in the faceand, in spite of what he saw there, to main-tain with humility the high level of his. Dr. John Mooki-., who left a lively account ofVoltaires activity during the last year of his life. constructive mental energy. It would behard to find a more exacting test of intellectand courage than that—than to contemplatecorrectly the verities, and still show undis-mayed the feelings and actions of an opti-___^ mist. To stand such a test re-quires, in addition to the purelyintellectual critical qualities,the kind of understandingof humanity which is in-separable from the loveof it. Medicine, as wellas other branches oflearning, owes itschief debt to men like\ oltaire, who were atonce brave, know ingand humble. Voltaireused to say that hisdesire was to try andsow broadcast whathe perceived so clear-ly himself. lie com-plained that the fieldswere ungrateful, notrealizing, perhaps,that only men of fiberlike his own can grasptruth firmly and hold it. Judged by theevents which have had a bearing on theconclusions that he drew, he made sing-ularly few error
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