An introduction to the study of clinical medicine : being a guide to the investigation of disease for the use of students / by Octavius Sturges.
- Sturges, Octavius, 1833-1894.
- Date:
- 1873
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An introduction to the study of clinical medicine : being a guide to the investigation of disease for the use of students / by Octavius Sturges. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![The import- ance of noting symptoms^ we are not to start with, a bias in favour of any one of them.* Not only should lue learn the loarticulars of such heJedftary cUseasBs as are hnown or sup]9osed to be transmissihle, htHs?^^^' hut inquire further into the general characteristics The family and toue of health of the patient's family.—The im- hi story. ^ • r ^ r portance of such, knowledge arises from the lact tliat, in this respect as well as in others, the in- dividual is likely to resemble the rest of his race. Yague symptoms of hypochondriasis, neuralgic at- tacks, sudden and otherwise unaccountable failure of the bodily or mental powers at a certain age, are phenomena apt to recur in the same family, and which often receive no further explanation than that such is the habit of the stock; the child is con- structed after the same pattern as the parent. It is, indeed, highly probable that in this transmission of the very same characteristics from one generation to the next, the precise phenomena are not always necessarily repeated. The essential condition may remain, but its manifestations may vary as well from one generation to the next, as from time to time in the same individual. The observation can only be * A similar remark might seem to apply to the reception at this stage of evidence as to hereditary disease, but here it is to be said that information upon this point often determines the weight to be given to certain symptoms which without such aid could not of themselves be correctly appreciated. A knowledge of the patient's employment may or may not be needed for the full interpretation of the symptoms. A knowledge of his in- herited tendencies is always necessary for estimating their relative importance.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20407439_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
