The relations of morbid anatomy to practical medicine : being the closing lecture of the course upon physiology and pathology in the Hahnemann medical college for the session of 1860-61 / by R. Ludlam.

  • Ludlam, R. (Reuben), 1831-1899
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The relations of morbid anatomy to practical medicine : being the closing lecture of the course upon physiology and pathology in the Hahnemann medical college for the session of 1860-61 / by R. Ludlam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    need a broader outlook than we who have preceded you. The mind is capable of great achievement, and, if you shall con- centrate its energies in this direction, it will be impossible to estimate the service you shall render to medicine and to man- kind. In all this I would not undervalue the therapeutics of our school of practice. I would not ignore the lessons of the art of medicine, and its more recent adaptation to the relief of suffering and disease. I defer to no one in my admiration for the homoeopathic system, as taught in the Hahnemann Me- dical College, and to whose kind benefactions my own patients are daily debtors; but, while revering the art, I cannot for- swear my allegiance to the science we preach and should practice. ]Sor does it matter that there be those who opine that the value of morbid anatomy is a species of myth, of no prac- tical service as a handmaid of the healing art. Liebnitz de- nounced the law of gravitation as atheistic, but that did not make infidels of those who received it. The physician can have no more plausible reason for accept- ing the tenets, and advocating the study of the art, to the ex- clusion of the science of medicine, than has the physicist for proclaiming the acceptance of the law of chemical affinity to be orthodox while the like endorsement of the law of gra- vitation is atheistical. As perfection in manhood implies a proper development and correspondence of the physical, the mental, and the moral qualities of the individual, so the model physician is he whose measure of culture and training in one branch of the calling is properly adjusted to that of the remainder. A one-sided doctor is a deformity! But I will desist from a further tax upon your time and patience. To-morrow those of you who constitute the first Graduating Class of this College are to be formally invested with all the rights and privileges which pertain to the doc- torate in medicine. To my most heartfelt thanks, therefore, for the measure of long-suffering and forbearance which it has pleased you to exercise towards my efforts to serve you, I may add a sincere desire for your personal and professional welfare.