Eminent medical men of Asia, Africa, Europe and America, who have advanced medical science; for the use of students and for the Vydians and Hakims of India / by Edward Balfour.

Balfour Edward (Edward Green), 1813-1889.

Date:: 1876

Credit: Eminent medical men of Asia, Africa, Europe and America, who have advanced medical science; for the use of students and for the Vydians and Hakims of India / by Edward Balfour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$,E it' tinction between Surp^ery and Medicine had not been made, but amongst the works attributed to him are treatises on fractures, on wounds of the head and on ulcers His knowledge of anatomy was little if at all superior to that of his contemporaries, and his knowledge of true phys.ology and of the functional action of the organs of the body dur- 3u- health and disease was extremely limited, but in the accuracy with which he observed the symptoms of disease and in the fidelity of his descriptions he has rarely, ,f ever, been surpassed. It is upon these grounds that he ha. ustly obtained the title of the Father of Medicine, and ti Ut all times continue to command for him the respect of medical men. By the ancient Greek and Latin and Arabifn phyTicIans,'his writings were held in the highes esteem, and have been translated into Arabic and al tl,( lanSSges of Europe ; the Greek and Roman writers Plato, Sus and Pliny speak of Hippocrates with great respect i.i ^^iolZ Sh L almost enthusiastic admiration. In hu treatment of disease, he acted on the great and fnndamen- . tl t™th that in medicine, probably even more than in any . other science, the basis of all true knowledge is the accu u rate Ob evvation of actual phenomena, and the corred.. gteralJation of these phenomena, is sole found^^^^^^ « nil our reasoning. He accurately described the leading tea. su tures of S^^^^^^ and introduced the inductive plan o: observing the phenomena of nature and of deducing cone u. „ sions from them. Hence his descriptions of particnla, , Sses after all the revolutions of centuries, customs anc , babS are still found to be correct representations o, ia^ure' while his indications of cure and the treatmen' , dedved lom them are generally rational and Practical I , t Hippocrates who introduced the P-«»-„«J^--;];^ individual cases of disease, and he the first to deduc. the indications of cure from his observations of Proper lipVof remedies. His system has never received a name bu numerous as have been the systems that have been ijro ■ected sTce, mankind has always returned to his J^inc ph diseases. It is in nis ^nwuga oTJetpnce of t observed of physiology; he supposed the ^^^^e^e o »$