The Evolution of Modern Medicine A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913

From the opening

SAIL to the Pacific with some Ancient Mariner, and traverse day by day that silent sea until you reach a region never before furrowed by keel where a tiny island, a mere speck on the vast ocean, has just risen from the depths, a little coral reef capped with green, an atoll, a mimic earth, fringed with life, built up through countless ages by life on the remains of life that has passed away. And now, with wings of fancy, join Ianthe in the magic car of Shelley, pass the eternal gates of the flaming ramparts of the world and see his vision:

Below lay stretched the boundless Universe! There, far as the remotest line That limits swift imagination's flight, Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion, Immutably fulfilling Eternal Nature's law. Above, below, around, The circling systems formed A wilderness of harmony. (Daemon of the World, Pt. I.)

And somewhere, "as fast and far the chariot flew," amid the mighty globes would be seen a tiny speck, "earth's distant orb," one of "the smallest lights that twinkle in the heavens." Alighting, Ianthe would find something she had probably not seen elsewhere in her magic flight--life, everywhere encircling the sphere. And as the little coral reef out of a vast depth had been built up by generations of polyzoa, so she would see that on the earth, through illimitable ages, successive generations of animals and plants had left in stone their imperishable records: and at the top of the series she would meet the thinking, breathing creature known as man. Infinitely little as is the architect of the atoll in proportion to the earth on which it rests, the polyzoon, I doubt not, is much larger relatively than is man in proportion to the vast systems of the Universe, in which he represents an ultra-microscopic atom less ten thousand times than the tiniest of the "gay motes that people the sunbeams."

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

• A Belated Guest (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)William Dean HowellsHistory19 pages
• A Bit of Old ChinaCharles Warren StoddardHistory17 pages
• A Book of Remarkable CriminalsH. B. IrvingHistory341 pages
• A Book of ScoundrelsCharles WhibleyHistory202 pages
• A Brief History of the Internet The Bright Side: The Dark SideMichael HartHistory59 pages