" To one
scientific man of the period I must refer as the author of the first
scientific book published in England. Dryden sings:
Gilbert shall live till load-stones cease to draw
Or British fleets the boundless ocean awe.
And the verse is true, for by the publication in 1600 of the "De
Magnete" the science of electricity was founded. William Gilbert was a
fine type of the sixteenth-century physician, a Colchester man, educated
at St. John's College, Cambridge. Silvanus Thompson says: "He is beyond
question rightfully regarded as the Father of Electric Science. He
founded the entire subject of Terrestrial Magnetism. He also made
notable contributions to Astronomy, being the earliest English expounder
of Copernicus. In an age given over to metaphysical obscurities and
dogmatic sophistry, he cultivated the method of experiment and of
reasoning from observation, with an insight and success which entitles
him to be regarded as the father of the inductive method. That method,
so often accredited to Bacon, Gilbert was practicing years before
him."(40)
(40) Silvanus P. Thompson: Gilbert of Colchester, Father of
Electrical Science, London, Chiswick Press, 1903, p. 3.
CHAPTER V -- THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN MEDICINE
THE middle of the seventeenth century saw the profession thus far on
its way--certain objective features of disease were known, the art of
careful observation had been cultivated, many empirical remedies had
been discovered, the coarser structure of man's body had been well
worked out, and a good beginning had been made in the knowledge of how
the machinery worked--nothing more.
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