A Hand-book of uterine therapeutics, and of diseases of women / by Edward John Tilt.

  • Tilt, Edward John, 1815-1893.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A Hand-book of uterine therapeutics, and of diseases of women / by Edward John Tilt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    emplifies better than obstetrics, that medicine is one and indivisible. If the physician-accoucheur has to decide problems of purely medical practice, he is likewise the surgeon of the female organs of generation ; but in whichever capacity I address the reader, I disclaim all intention of reproducing all that has been said, rather wishing to embody the results of thirty years' practice, and to give the pith and marrow of uterine therapeutics. I must therefore ask the reader to bear with me, if I dilate on contested points, and sometimes treat slightly what he may deem important. Theory seldom encroaches so far on practice as to make practitioners rely entirely on one kind of medicine for the cure of a disease ; but *vhen it is a question of taking an account of our therapeutical stores, and of explaining to others their relative value under spe- cific circumstances, it is advantageous to discuss each mode of treatment as if it were that on which we had to place our chief re- liance ; and I cannot help considering the repetitions to which it has given rise as advantageous, because it has enabled me to study uterine affections under various aspects, as they are constantly oc- curring in practice. Books, however valuable, are much less so than actual teaching, and as, even in our best metropolitan hospitals, the means of study- ing diseases of women are still most inefficient, whoever wishes to understand them should, before settling down, spend at least one year in the Paris hospitals, which afford such large opportunities for studying the diseases of women—opportunities so generously placed at the disposition of all. It would be better still, to become dresser to some of the eminent physicians who particularly study uterine pathology, like Huguier or Bernutz, or be under those who do duty at the Hopital de l'Ourcine. On beginning practice, the young practitioner will find how different it is to watch disease in an hospital, and to assume the responsibility of a case: he will feel the difference between medical science and medical art, the difficulty of at first applying science to the good of his fellow-creatures. He will see how difficult it is to obtain a full knowledge of the circumstances of a case, for, in- stead of making it clear to him, the patient will often ingeniously evade his questions ; or in her state of emotion, without meaning to deceive, she may say what is not true, so that he will be fre- quently led wrong, and his difficulty often increases in proportion to the degree of refinement of his patient: indeed, information