On the sciences of medicine and surgery.

  • William Parker
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the sciences of medicine and surgery. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    5/12
    ON THE SCIENCES OF MEDICINE AND SUEGEUY. —♦— The sciences of medicine and surgery are known to us through the knowledge of physiology, which is acquired through the assistance of analogy, anatomy, and chemistry. Physiology treats of intimate knowledge of things, whereby we adapt their uses. Analogy treats of like things, as tea and coffee are allied to the blood. Anatomy treats of divisional parts of things. Chemistry treats of constituents of things. Tradition speaks of received notions without the knowledge of the above branches of science. We have false and true traditions. What constitutes the knowledge of the medical sciences ? The ground work of these sciences must be in the knowledge of the uses of the materials of the globe. These materials are found beneficial as far as physiology, analogy, anatomy, and chemistry have revealed to us their fitting purposes. Without the knowledge of these branches of the sciences our practice would be quackery. The materials most common to our use are the atmosphere, tea, coffee, cocoa, Irish moss, &c., as food—ammonia, quinine, morphia, strychnine, &c., as medicines, or nitrogenous vegetables, or compounds. By the aid of chemistry, these materials have been found to be composed of the same elements as our blood, viz.—carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, in various quantities. By the aid of analogy, the human blood is supplied with renovating properties from these nitrogenous substances. By the aid of anatomy, curative processes are expedited. By the aid of physiology, suitable food and medicine are selected in health and disease. False traditions in medical sciences cannot be tolerated, as follows : 1. Lavoisier's notions of heat and nutrition 2. Galen's notions of the flow of the blood. 3. Dr. S. Johnson's notions of the state of the deaf and dumb being hopeless. 4. Of the incurability of cholera. 5. Of the deficiency of cow pox to mitigate, or prevent, small pox. Chemistry having ascertained tlie existence of elements in the materials, it next becomes the part of the physioh^gist to appro- priate the uses of these elements as far as experience would direct him ; if their uses have been misapplied or neglected, surely great fault must arise in the practice of the sciences.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image