On hospital instruction : an introductory address to the students at St. Vincent's Hospital on November 4th, 1858, session 1858-9 / by J.M. O'Ferrall.

  • O'Ferrall, J. M. (Joseph Michael), 1790-1868.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On hospital instruction : an introductory address to the students at St. Vincent's Hospital on November 4th, 1858, session 1858-9 / by J.M. O'Ferrall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    served the indications and the results of treatment ; and this can only he acquired at the bedside of the patient. That which is written and taught on the subject you might have learned, and even retained, and yet you might, at the bedside, find yourself at a loss to determine what medicine or combination of medicines would, at that particular moment, best agree with the patient and his disease. Medicine, as a science, is one thing, and may be cultivated in quiet and without anxiety, because a hasty genera¬ lization can be rectified at leisure. System after system have arisen and disappeared, and might con¬ tinue to do so without injury if the sphere of their influence was limited to the inquirer; but medicine as an art is another thing, and involves the moral re¬ sponsibility arising from the conviction that mistake is now no longer confined in its effects to the inquirer, but affect seriously another party, who, having no share in the investigation, has no power to interfere for his own safety or protection. The experimental em¬ ployment of remedies, therefore, is unjustifiable, when a knowledge of their actions on the animal economy might have been acquired by diligence and obser¬ vation. The simplest article in the materia medica is capable of producing various physiological effects, according to the dose, combination with other things, or the peculiar circumstances of the case. I cannot, therefore, repeat too often what I have long since said in this place—and every day’s experience in
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