Lectures on inflammation : exhibiting a view of the general doctrines, pathological and practical, of medical surgery / by John Thomson.

  • Thomson, John, 1765-1846.
Date:
1813
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on inflammation : exhibiting a view of the general doctrines, pathological and practical, of medical surgery / by John Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    24/670 (page 8)
    roents of both arts. These arts have had the same origin, and they have the same end. The human body is the sphere of their exertions, and whatever can affect it, in matter, vi- tality, or mind, is the object of their researches. It wil] not, I hope, be conceived, from the earnestness with which I have recommended the study of physic and surgery in common, that I am disposed to deny the great and pecu- liar advantages which society derives from the subdivision of labour .in the medical profession. The effects of this sub- division in improving individual skill in the medical as well as other professions, wherever the state of society is such as to admit of it, is too obvious to be made the subject of any dispute. But the sum of what I wish to contend for is, that those who are destined for the exercise of the medi- cal profession, by whatever name denominated, whether physician, surgeon, or apothecary, should all receive the same elementary education ; for it is this only that can en- sure their mutual co-operation, and enable them to discharge, with full utility to the public, the duties of any particular branch of medical practice to which they may afterwards be induced to devote their exclusive attention. This, it ap- pears to me, is the only rational reform that the present state of medical education admits of, the only proper barrier that can ever be raised between the medical profession and the practice of dangerous quacks and ignorant pretenders. It is with a view to promote such improvement in the edu- cation of medical men, that the honorary degrees and certifi- cates of qualification confci'red by universities or colleges of physic and surgery should have their origin, and not in that exclusive and illiberal spirit, which, by enjoining a dis- tinct course of elementary instruction, vainly endeavours to separate, in the general practice of the medical profession, branches which ever have been, and ever must be united. Instead, therefore, of attempting to widen, as has been but too often done, the breach between the different branches I