On the structure and growth of the tissues, and on life : ten lectures delivered at King's College, London / by Lionel S. Beale.

Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the structure and growth of the tissues, and on life : ten lectures delivered at King's College, London / by Lionel S. Beale. 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.

    21/246 (page 7)
    selves, and by this course alone shall we be able to shaine those amongst us who are base enough to their profession to support and pamper an impostor or encourage a stupid system of treatment because they have not the courage to offend the prejudices, or oppose the caprices of some self- willed, wealthy, and perhaps influential person. We must oppose the spread of quackery, and endeavour to prevent the harm resulting from it by increased devotion to our profession, by prosecuting researches for the discovery of new truths, or for confirming facts which appear inconclu- sive, and by unremitting efforts to demonstrate simply and most conclusively the soundness of the fundamental princi- ples of medicine. The skill of the modern chemist exposes the vicious refinements of the most ingenious and subtle poisoner ; and in the same way our earnestness and gra- dually-increasing knowledge of disease must ultimately destroy the influence which unscrupulous charlatans have long exerted upon ignorant persons. The Cell and other theories—There are certain points in which all living structures resemble each other—e.(/., all spring from preexisting living structures, and this fact has been proved in the most positive and satisfactory manner by several different kinds of evidence. Again, all living structures are perpetually undergoing change; they grow, are nourished, exist for a time, and ultimately die. They possess the power of assimilating to themselves lifeless matter, and communicating to it the same peculiar ])ropcr- ti{;s with which they themselves are endowed ; and further, they possess the power of multiplying themselves infinitely— of giving rise to other oiganisms which inherit similar