First lines of the practice of physic / by William Cullen, M.D. ... ; with practical and explanatory notes, by John Rotheram, M. D. ; in two volumes ; vol. I[-II].

  • Cullen, William, 1710-1790.
Date:
1805
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First lines of the practice of physic / by William Cullen, M.D. ... ; with practical and explanatory notes, by John Rotheram, M. D. ; in two volumes ; vol. I[-II]. 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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    FIRST LINES OF THE PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. INTRODUCTION. 1.] TN teaching the Practice of Physic, we endeavor A to give instruction for discerning, distinguishing, preventing, and curing diseases, as they occur in particular persons. 2.] The art of discerning and distinguishing diseases, may be best attained by an accurate and complete observa- tion of their phenomena, as these occur in concourse and in succession, and by constantly endeavoring to distinguish the peculiar and inseparable concurrence of symptoms, to establish a Methodical Nosology, or an arrangement of diseases according to their genera and species, founded up- on observation alone, abstracted from all reasoning. Such an arrangement I have attempted in another work, to which in the course of the present 1 shall frequently refer. 3.] The prevention of diseases depends upon the know- ledge of their remote causes ;* which is partly delivered in the general Pathology, and partly to be delivered in this treatise. 4.] The cure of diseases is chiefly, and almost unavoid- ably founded in the knowledge of their proximate causes.-]- This requires an acquaintance with the Institutions of Me- dicine ; that is, the knowledge of the structure, action, and functions of the human body ; of the several changes which it may undergo ; and of the several powers by which it can * Remote causes are of two kinds, viz. the predisposing and the exciting, or,, as it is some- times called the occasional. The predisposing .hat which renders the body liabler or capable of being affiled bv disease when the exciting cause is applied. No ^annw«AM an occasional cause'; yet it is necessary, that at the same t.me, the state of the body Jiould be such as to admit that cause to take effect, or act. The predisposing cause .is inherent in the bod) , but it may nevertheless be induced or changed by an external cause still more r^mme. imu plethora may be the predisposing cause of many diseases, yet that same plethora may be induced by various causes previously acting on the body. The prevention of diseases is to avu| ,n« ex- citing cause, and to cprrect that state of the body, which renders it capable of being ancctea o> ie proxfmar'e^causes are tho^e which immediately produce the disease, and whose removal cares the disease.