The principles of medicine, founded on the structure and functions of the animal organism / By Samuel Jackson.

  • Samuel Jackson
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles of medicine, founded on the structure and functions of the animal organism / By Samuel Jackson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/688 (page 12)
    From this train of reflexions the plan originally adopted was abandoned, and it was thought a more lasting and useful perform- ance would arise by attempting, though the execution of the work must of necessity prove defective, the establishment of prin- ciples of general application, derived from an analysis of the phenomena manifested in the structure and functions of the ani- mal organism. A work of this kind, it is by no means improbable, may not prove popular. Students and practitioners too frequently expect practical works, so constructed as to save them the labour of thought. They look for arrangements and categories of symp- toms, which shall embrace every variety of disease, and meet the exigencies and even varying circumstances of particular cases. They require didactic rules, positive instructions, formule and prescriptions of approved efficacy and certain operation, applica- ble on clear indications to the diversified and mutable incidents of the pathological condition. ‘These expectations are chimerical. The human organism is not a mechanism of uniform structure and arrangement, acting in one uniform mode in every individual: nor can a physician be reduced to the capacity of a mere en- gineer, passively superintending the movements of a mechanical machine. Subject to endless variety in the combinations of its re- mote and its proximate organic elements, in the energy of its forces, the manifestation of its phenomena, and modes of exist- ence, the animal economy requires, in order to its perfect com- prehension, the most profound investigation, combined with deep and careful reflexion. Every case presents itself as a distinct pro- blem, is to be studied separately, and its specific nature and rela- tions are to be deduced and solved by the application of fixed principles on the rules of philosophic calculation. The elements of this calculation, the principles that form its radix, are the pro- positions evolved from the analysis of the phenomena of the or- ganism, a full and comprehensive knowledge of its structure, _ forces, and functions, in their physiological and pathological modes — of being, thoroughly investigated and clearly established by cli- nical and autopsical observation, and minute anatomical research. This system can alone confer on the proceedings of the practi- fioner the attribute of a rational method—without which, in the lan-