An introduction to medical literature, including a system of practical nosology : intended as a guide to students, and an assistant to practitioners / by Thomas Young.

  • Thomas Young
Date:
1813
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to medical literature, including a system of practical nosology : intended as a guide to students, and an assistant to practitioners / by Thomas Young. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    employing only four words at a time ; and experience shows that twelve words are almost universally sufficient,] For want of this conciseness, all the old specific characters, which exhibit descriptions instead of distinctions, are to be held in abhorrence. [Thus Podagra atonica, cum ventriculi vel alius partis in- ternae atonia, et vel sine expectata aut solita artuum inflam- matione, vel cum doloribus artuum lenibus taatum et fugaci- bus, et cum dyspepsia vel aliis atoniae symptomatis, subito saepe alternantibus. Dr. CuUen professes to have less apprehension of too many words than of too few : a principle wliich is highly proper as appHed to a detailed description, but not to a specific character. If 12 words were thought too few for the specific characters of diseases, we might allow of 15 or even 20; but for 30 there can be no possible occasion. Dr. Willan's valuable work on cutaneous diseases loses much of its utility from the total omission of regular specific characters.] 292. Specific characters must contain only such words as arc necessary for distinguishing the species from others of the same genus. ^ 293. When a genus contains only one species, a specific cha- racter is superfluous. [There may however be cases in which a character, pointed out as likely to be essential, by a person well acquainted with the species, may be useful in distinguishing it from others sub' sequently discovered.] 294. When a new species of a genus is discovered, the characters of all the other species must be accommodated to it, if they become inadequate. 295. The words forming a specific character arc not to be compounds resembling generic names, nor purely Greek, but Latin ; and the more simple they are, the better. Belleval gives, as specific characters, Chondrilla fiiKpo/^nfKi- voTToXvKavXoi, Glycyrrhiza /xaKpoppi^oiroXvff'^^^iBTjg, Hieracium' fbtaKpoaTcvdipvWoy. [The trivial names of Ploucquet's Nosology are somewhat
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