An introductory lecture on the anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the eye, delivered at the Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, October 4, 1839 / by Richard Middlemore.

  • Middlemore, Richard, 1804-1891.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introductory lecture on the anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the eye, delivered at the Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, October 4, 1839 / by Richard Middlemore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    wlien niis])lucecl, but which is of great benefit when really deserved. I aslc, indeed I expect this confidence, but not in the degree in which it is often so promptly and generously accorded ; for, without it, in some measure, I cannot lecture to you with any degree of satisfaction to myself or with much prospect of advantage to you. Gentlemen, — Had I been an Oculist, or (to adopt a more pliant term) a Surgeon-Oculist, entirely confining my attention to the treatment of the maladies affecting the organ of vision, I am sure I should not have been requested to deliver the course of Lectures on Ophthalmic Surgery at this school, for, it is obvious, thatliowever accurately I might have described many of the symptoms and the s&now^ exter- nal characters of disease, the treatment it would have been possible for me to suggest for their relief must, of necessity, have been based on narrow and erroneous principles. Per- haps, indeed, it is not going too far to assert, that he who limits his practice to the management of diseases of the eye, soon becomes incompetent to treat any of them but those of the slightest consequence. The practice of the mere Oculist has a tendency to separate the pathology of the eye from that of the system, to detach it from its natural associations, to invest it with a character of isolation, and, in this way, such practitioners, whatever they may have been at the outset of their career, gradually and almost imperceptibly acquire, and are guided by, rules of treatment and views of management, at once conti'acted, erroneous, and un- philosophical. In order to study diseases of the eye and their treatment in a right method, — in a method calculated to assist you in truly obtaining a full ac- quaintance with them and with their proper manage- ment, the pathology of the whole system must be laid under contribution; — the general principles of therapeutics must also be borne in mind. In the words of a distinguished