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George Macilwain
(1797 - 22 Jan 1882)
who was strongly against indiscriminate amputation, violent purgatives. He was also strongly opposed to the cruelty of vivisection of animals, and produced several commentaries on the subject. In addition to clinical medical writings, he published the Memoirs of John Abernathy (1858) under whom both he and his father had been students.
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Science Quotes by George Macilwain (2 quotes)
Error has indeed long darkened the horizon of medical science; and albeit there have been lightnings like coruscations of genius from time to time, still they have passed away, and left the atmosphere as dark as before.
— George Macilwain
Memoirs of John Abernethy (1854), 293.
Lecturing after a fashion is easy enough ; teaching is a very different affair. ... The transmission of ideas from one mind to another, in a simple unequivocal form, is not always easy ; but in teaching, the object is not merely to convey the idea, but to give a lively and lasting impression; something that should not merely cause the retention of the image, but in such connection as to excite another process, ' thought.'
— George Macilwain
Memoirs of John Abernethy (1854), 253.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
