Medical lectures and essays / by George Johnson.

  • George Johnson
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical lectures and essays / by George Johnson. 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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    !•] exercised and strengthened by a thorough study of that delight- ful science. The subject is so extensive that a lifetime scarcely suffices for the thorough mastery of all its details and prin- ciples. But, without aspiring to he profound chemists, it will he your duty to acquire such a theoretical and practical know- ledge of the subject as will be required in the daily practice of your calling. A man ignorant of chemistry cannot write a prescription without the risk of combining ingredients which are incompatible, and so bringing about most unexpected and undesirable results. A knowledge of chemistry is essential for understanding the operation, and therefore for the success- ful administration, of antidotes for poisons. It is equally essential for the testing of the various secretions, by which the most valuable information as to the presence and progress of disease is obtained. The time will come when circumstances or your own deliberate choice will decide for each of you what department of practice you shall adopt; whether you will become consult- ing physicians or surgeons or so-called general practitioners, or whether you will select some such special department of practice as obstetrics, lunacy, or ophthalmic, aural, or dental surgery. Now, I desire to impress upon you that the only sure and safe foundation for specialism is a thorough know- ledge of disease in general. It should be said with truth of the specialist, not that he knows less of general disease, but. that he has more knowledge of the nature and treatment of some special class of diseases. Let me now give you some proofs and illustrations of this statement. There are few, if any, special departments of practice which have so indisputable a raison d'etre as ophthalmic surgery, for the successful practice of which a special manual dexterity, and constant practice in the performance of delicate operations, are essential. But again, there are few diseases which afford so many, and such striking, illustrations of the close relation- ship between various tissues and organs, and the dependence of apparently local structural changes upon remote and often general constitutional conditions, as those which affect the eye. Thus, in one case, defect of vision may, by the aid of the oph- thalmoscope, be seen to be caused by a degeneration of the B 2
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