Lectures on clinical medicine / [John Hughes Bennett].

  • John Hughes Bennett
Date:
1850-1856]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on clinical medicine / [John Hughes Bennett]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    r* i which is heard by the one, is inaudible to the other; what the first feels dis¬ tinctly is not tangible to the second. Now this instruction of the senses con¬ stitutes a kind of information which cannot be obtained from others; you must acquire it for yourselves. Of late years, also, the detection of facts has been greatly facilitated by the appropriate use of instruments, whereby what at one time was conjectural is now rendered certain. Thus, the existence of many diseases, which could formerly only be arrived at by a happy speculation, or by a rare sagacity, is easily demonstrated by those who know how to employ, judiciously, chemical tests, microscopes, stethoscopes, pleximeters, specula, &c. To carry observation, then, to its utmost extent, we must learn how to avail ourselves of all these means in the examination of the signs and symptoms of disease. On the other hand, Gentlemen, a sound and correct judgment is equally necessary, in order that the cultivation of the senses may lead to a proper end, and indicate the direction in which you must act for the benefit of the patient. For this purpose a certain degree of preliminary instruction is absolutely essential before you can be qualified to attend an hospital with advantage. Indeed, I must take it for granted, that before coining here you are tolerably well acquainted with anatomy and chemistry ; that you have studied the insti¬ tutes of medicine, that is, the present state of histology, physiology, and pa¬ thology, and that you have a notion of the materia medica, and of the effects of remedies on the economy. Thus prepared, you commence a series of visits to the bedsides of your fellow-creatures, labouring under disease, in other words, a course of clinical instruction. What should we understand by clinical instruction ? It is not attendance on clinical lectures—it is not learning the opinions of your teacher—in short, it is not deriving knowledge from others. It is acquiring medical information for yourselves—it is the learning how to observe—it is that education of the senses to which I have alluded ; and, from thence, the formation of that sound judgment which will enable you to act for the benefit of your patients. Medi¬ cine is not only a science, it is an art. The laws and facts of science you will. learn elsewhere. Here you must endeavour, keeping those laws and facts in remembrance, to found upon them an art. No art can be communicated. It must be learned by continual practice and experience ; and it has always ap¬ peared to me that the great aim of clinical instruction should be to enable the student to acquire that art for himself. How are all arts acquired ? A young mechanic, when he makes a chair, fol¬ lows exactly the same process as those who study what are called the fine arts. That is, he learns how to do what his master did before him. He imitates his plan of proceeding. His first attempts are rude and uncouth; his subsequent ones are more perfect, until, at length, by continual practice, he is enabled to equal, or surpass, his instructor. In painting, sculpture, and music, there are principles which must be attended to, and which are learnt from others ; but no man can become a painter, a sculptor, or a musician, without obtaining practical skill as an artist, in the way now alluded to. It is thus, and thus only, that art descends from the old to the young.