Discourse on the importance of the study of physiology as a branch of popular education / [John Fletcher].

  • John Fletcher
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discourse on the importance of the study of physiology as a branch of popular education / [John Fletcher]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    markable; and long before we are capable of making this effort, we have in general imbibed the idea, that the business of Physiology is a part of a particular profes¬ sion with which people in general have nothing what¬ ever to do. But admitting that Physiology is the essential lumi¬ nary of medicine, does that circumstance furnish a suf¬ ficient reason why a few of its rays should not diffuse themselves a little more extensively ? What should we think of the man who, because the law constitutes a par¬ ticular profession, omitted to make himself master of the value of property and the general rights and privileges of a citizen of the state, to the laws of which he is ame¬ nable ; or who, because theology is the proper business of another, was content to remain in ignorance of the common tenets of that religion of which he professes himself a member ? It is one thing to prosecute the study of Physiology in all its more abstruse depart¬ ments, with the intention of making it conducive to the elucidation and treatment of intricate diseases ; but it is another to take it up merely in its more obvious and es¬ tablished relations, and for the purpose of attaining at least a little insight into the structure and offices of a fabric which we are continually carrying about with us, and of which a well educated person cannot, with any degree of consistency, be entirely ignorant. It is sure¬ ly a very inadequate reason for remaining utterly unac¬ quainted with the structure and motions of a watch, that we are not destined to be all watchmakers or repairers of watches. Moreover Physiology is certainly no more pro¬ per to medicine than chemistry or botany; and who in the present day is deterred by this pretext from undertaking the study of either of these branches of knowledge, or does not consider it a reproach to be quite ignorant of at least the rudiments of sciences which are very far from coming any thing like so home to every man's bu¬ siness and bosom as the one in question ? But it may be said it is impossible to understand Physiology with¬ out a perfect knowledge of anatomy—we cannot inves¬ tigate the actions of a machine before we are fully ac-
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