Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A manual of medical diagnosis / by A.W. Barclay. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![IXTRODUCTIOX. The Province of Diagnosis—its Uses and Abuses—its Neglect—its Relation to the Theory of Disease. The ultimate ol>ject of study in all depai'tments of medicine—the object which must ever be kept in view alike by teacher and pupil—is the relief of the patient by the successful treatment of disease. To this end the properties of various remedial agents are taught in INIateria Medica, as they j^ossess the jJower of neutra- lizing or eliminating poisons, of counteracting morbid : action in its progress or modifying its results, and of : aiding and sustaining the powers of life, when those wonderful laws of our economy come into oj^eration, Iby which the destructive agency of noxious influences lis combated, and the useless and effete or injured tis- ! sues are extruded from the body. To the same end I the student must acquire a knowledge of the various ■structures of the body and the functions of its organs I in health, as well as the pathological changes in solids and fluids, which become the subjects of anatomical re- ' search, and the perversions of healthy function which ■ may be ti'acedat the bedside in tlie progress of disease ; ■ tliesebelong to the domain of Physiology and Pathology. ^ . The theory of disease, again, combines, by the aid of ex- perience, the perversion of function with the change of structure, deducing the symptoms observed as a neces- • sary sequence from the disturbance of the laws of health to which such changes mu.stgive rise; but it also teaclies rus that tliere are other and more hidden elements of idisease, stam])cd, in their operation on the human frame, with characters no less marked and distinct, B](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24989812_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
