An introductory address delivered at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical College, October 1, 1857 / by Edwin Canton.

  • Canton, Edwin, 1817-1885.
Date:
[1857?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introductory address delivered at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical College, October 1, 1857 / by Edwin Canton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The various physical, chemical, and therapeutical qualities of these you will he taught in Lectures, and in the wards of the Hospital you will have the opportunity of judging of their stated efficacy. Your information on the subject should he perfect, so that you may he fully prepared to determine how far the praises bestowed on a remedy are justified by its effects—how far collateral circum¬ stances may have influenced those effects—how far you should assign to Nature the part she has played in the cure. I would add, that though you shall have become perfectly conversant with the Materia Medica, remember that disease, however formidable, is frequently to be treated by most simple remedies; and an extensive and curious com¬ bination of drugs, involving the outlay of a lengthy and learned prescription, whilst it displays your intimate acquaintance with medicinal substances, may demonstrate, at the same time, your profound ignorance of the complaint for which they are intended. On the other hand, it must always be borne in mind, that the union of medicines is often highly advantageous, and, indeed, in many instances, absolutely necessary; nevertheless, the elaborate intermixture of drugs sometimes lays the prescriber open to the suspicion of aiming at a mark which he imperfectly descries, but which one or other of his many missiles, perchance, may reach. Closely allied to the subject of which I have
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