Lettsomian lectures, on insanity / by Forbes Winslow.

  • Forbes Benignus Winslow
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lettsomian lectures, on insanity / by Forbes Winslow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    losophy, and devoted much attention to the investigation of ques- tions relating to the influence of the spiritual upon the material portions of the organization, I may, perhaps, he excused, if I shouldj in the course of my remarks upon the necessity of a more general and accurate knowledge of the science of mind, convey a somewhat extravagant conception of the value of that section of inquiry which presents so many charms to my own imagina- tion. ^ With the object of demonstrating the theoretical and practical advantages resulting from this investigation, I have undertaken, in my first lecture, to illustrate the sijecial psycho- logical attributes of the physician—to claim for the cultivators of medical science higher and more exalted functions than those usually assigned to them—to consider the physician in his sjn- ritual character, as having at his command, and imder his control, a medicina mentis as well as a medicina corporis—agents of great power and magnitude—which Lave not been sufficiently recognised or appreciated. It will be my object to estabhsh the close connexion between the Science of Mind, and the Science AND Practice of Medicine, and to illustrate the true philoso- phic character of the professors of the healing art. Act jucrayziv TTjv (To^iav etc Ti]v larpiicnv, Km Tr\v larpiKtiv elg Tr]v ao^iav' larpog yap (})iXo(j0^oq IcroOcog. * We form but a low and grovelling estimate of oiu- high destina- tion—of the duties of our dignified vocation—if we conceive that our operations are limited to a successful application of onere Physical Agents. God forbid that we should thus vilify ourselves, and degrade our noble science ! A physician whose horizon is bounded by a.n historical knowledge of the human machine, and who can only distinguish terminologically and locally the coarser wheels of this piece of intellectual clockwork, may be, perhaps, idolized by the mob ; but he will never raise the Hippocratic art above the narrow sphere of a mere bread-earning craft.t The physician is daily called upon, in the exercise of his profession, to witness the powerful effect of mental emotion upon the material fabric. He recognises the fact, although he may bei unable to explain its rationale. He perceives that moral causes induce disease, destroy life, retard recovery, and often inter- fere with the successful operation of the most potent remedial means exhibited for the alleviation and cure of bodily disease and suffering. Although such influences are admitted to play an * Hippocrates. f Schiller.
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