An elementary compendium of physiology : for the use of students / by F. Magendie ; translated from the French with copious notes, tables, and illustrations, by E. Milligan.

  • Magendie, François, 1783-1855. Précis élémentaire de physiologie. English
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An elementary compendium of physiology : for the use of students / by F. Magendie ; translated from the French with copious notes, tables, and illustrations, by E. Milligan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    am], therefore, could not make accurate observations. This latter inference is from his “ oivn notes,” and of course, it was not imperative on the journalists to add the how and the where ! The journalists are not so strait laced. Lastly, Dr. Milligan finds no eminent person in the ranks of phrenology : ergo, Dr. M. is devoured with self-esteem :—and to procure even a colour for this most lame and impotent conclusion, they have been forced to garble the sentiment, and interpolate the punctuation.* See g, p. 55a. Let not the reader think me tedious with the paralogisms of those now whin- ing, now obstreperous sophists: their floundering is to me, and every enemy of absurdity and imposture, a source of congratulation and triumph : especially here, as constituting the sum of all the attempts at reasoning of the two scurrilous paragraphs dedicated to their support, and exposing the thorough nakedness and destitution of their cause : for to most of my arguments, in the notes above, not a word of rational reply has been returned. Have they accounted for their science remaining obscure and despised for the last thirty years ? Have they explained why men of science ridicule their * Dr. Milligan’s book bears in its front his occupation and professional titles, and he inscribes it as now, for the use of students. By the journalists-' manifestations of reasoning, he is for this a pedant, an absurd man, overflowing with self-esteem, and a fit butt to be jeered at in all the knackery of the printing house—long and short capitals—italic and brevier, hyphen and interjection!!! and all that the tiny wit of a journeyman compositor could suggest to the confederacy. In short, nobody but a mere quack would write a book«‘ for the use of Students ' ” For men who never read, of course! The Student” will wonder whether he is to name tins inference absurd, or absolutely insane, when be is told that the original design and execution of the work before him, as well as my humble endeavours to enhance them, were for his sole benefit: and that, with all their apparent illiterateness, the critics must have read the following passage, translated, in the end of the author's preface: <■ Je dois dire, eu terminant, que ce livre est entierement destine aux etudians en medecine. S’ils y trouvent, en termes claires et simples, ce q’uil y a de positif en physiologie, j’aurai atteint l’object que me suis propose.” I shall be told, I suppose, that if 1 will read again the page of this author’s work to which I refer, I will find, that, like Dr. Barclay, he does not “ touch in the slightest degree upon the question ! Quackery with me was out of this same question. I wonder what kind of empiric they would make of Treviranus, who entitles his immortal Biologic, For the use of virtuosi and practitioners.” The copyright of the edition they abuse had been sold to my honest book- seller, long before a word of the book was printed; was settled for, and published, and sold off by him, without one single puif, or review, or newspaper paragraph, to my remembrance. It was not horsed up by the name of a great bookseller, secured against losses by back bonds, nor sold by him for the benefit of a junto, on a per centage, for what it would bring as a speculation; nor made a running title for lectures in the Scotsman,-so numerously at! tended at Glasgow, that nobody could get in. No offence to Mr. Combe, but really the most oblique hints at quackery, come with as ill grace, from the hands of his journal admirers, as they would from himself, the success of whose lectures are so carefully recorded in thatpaper. Forgive me! living shade of John Ramsay Macculloch, for the comparison, but except thyself 1 meet none so often there. But every new notice of thee adds a new truth to human science, and a new advance towards human improvement: the genius of thy country blesses thy labours, and thy grateful citizens, from the highest to the lowest, the lofty tory, and the ardent whig, are loud alike in thy renown !—Would I could say as much for some othcri.