Elements of the theory and practice of medicine, designed for the use of students and junior practitioners / By George Gregory.

  • George Gregory
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of the theory and practice of medicine, designed for the use of students and junior practitioners / By George Gregory. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Hodgkin, and other distinguished writers of our own country, and in recent times, are giving a fresh interest to pathological anatomy. The microscope has now been added to our other means of investigating diseased structures, nor can it be doubted that this new agent will ultimately exert great influence over the general character and tone of pathological science. The in- genious researches of Dr. George Johnson, regarding the fatty degenerations of the kidney and liver, promulgated while these pages were passing through the press, may be taken as the first instalment. 4. Effects of Disease.—It would be difficult to estimate too highly the advantages which modern medicine has derived from the deyotion of its cultivators to the study of morbid or patho- logical anatomy. By means of it, the effects and ravages of dis- ease have been much more clearly developed, and in many cases the primary seats of disease more accurately ascertained. This improvement in modern pathology may be considered as commencing with Dr. Baillie in 1795, who succeeded in direct- ing the attention of physicians to the study of morbid anatomy more effectually than had been done by Morgagni, his laborious but diffuse predecessor in the same department of science. It must be acknowledged, at the same time, that the example thus set has been diligently followed in France; and to the zeal of the French pathologists, and the abundant opportunities afforded by the French Hospitals, we are indebted for much of the in- creased amount and accuracy of our information regarding the changes of structure effected by disease. By many, of late years, the term pathology has been con- sidered as identical with morbid anatomy, and the attention of students has been fixed upon the dissecting-room, as if the elements of pathology could there only be properly studied. This, however, (as a most able writer and acute pathologist * has pointed out,) is a manifest error in science. The alterations in structure produced by disease are only one of the elements of our reasoning on the nature of diseased actions. Various * Dr. Alison in the “ Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine.” Appendix, p. Ixxxvii.
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