A treatise on the principles and practice of medicine : designed for the use of practitioners and students of medicine / by Austin Flint.

  • Flint, Austin, 1812-1886.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the principles and practice of medicine : designed for the use of practitioners and students of medicine / by Austin Flint. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    private practice and in hospitals, begun in 1833 and continued for more than half a century, covering sixteen thousand nine hundred and twenty- two folio pages of manuscript, written with the author's own hand. These records embrace carefully-written histories of cases in all departments of practical medicine, observed under varied conditions of life, climate, and general surroundings. Soldiers in camp and barracks; the rich and the ] ii Mir; those affected with diseases incident to lives of ease and luxury and paupers in hospitals; the pioneers of Western New York and the inhabit- ants of the metropolis; patients in the wards of the almshouse and hospitals of Buffalo, of the Marine Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, the great Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Bellevue Hospital, the Charity Hos- pital, the dispensaries, and similar institutions in the city of New York; cases observed in the experience of a quarter of a century as a general practitioner, and of more than another quarter of a century as a consulting physician, including the epidemics which have occurred in this country within the last fifty years,—the experience derived from these various sources of observa- tion, carefully recorded, studied, and analyzed, was finally used in the com- position of this treatise, the first edition of which appeared in 1866. In the mean time, the author's original contributions to practical medicine, embod- ied in special treatises, in communications published in medical period- icals, and in Transactions of medical societies, have left their impress upon many departments which, in recent years, have been classed as specialties; although he was always a physician, never a specialist. A student of the history of practical medicine will often find observations and ideas, assumed to be of recent date, which had been anticipated by the author many years before. It would be tedious to enumerate the systematic works, original articles, reviews, etc. published by the author within the last fifty years; but the scientific spirit which pervades all of his writings is well illustrated by the following extract from the Preface to the fifth edition of this work: In making changes, the author has not been influenced by any sense of obligation to maintain consistency of views with the previous editions of this treatise, or with other works which he has written. Whenever state- ments are found to vary from those made at a prior date, the simple expla- nation is that the latter, in the light of more recent reflection and enlarged knowledge, seem to him no longer tenable. He has endeavored to regard his own writings, in this point of view, divested of the partiality of author- ship, and to subject them to as critical an examination as if they were the writings of another. Added to a literary training and a recorded experience almost without parallel, was an exceptional knowledge and application of the best methods of teaching medicine, rendering the author one of the most popular and successful medical teachers of his time; a statement which will be echoed by thousands of practitioners, throughout this country and in foreign lands, who have attended his lectures. The lectures given by the author, in 1885- 86, completed his fiftieth regular course on the Principles and Practice of Medicine. Such, in brief, is the history of the author of this treatise as a practitioner,