Volume 1

A system of medicine by eminent authorities in Great Britain, the United States and the Continent / edited by William Osler, assisted by Thomas McCrae.

Date:
1907-10
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A system of medicine by eminent authorities in Great Britain, the United States and the Continent / edited by William Osler, assisted by Thomas McCrae. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    INTRODUCTION. THE EVOLUTION OF INTERNAL MEDICINE. By william OSLER, M.D. I. Scarcely twenty years have passed since the completion of Pepper’s System of Medicine. The distinguished ability of its Editor and the important group of contributors with whom he was associated combined to produce a treatise which profoundly influenced medicine in America. Twenty years are a very brief space of time, but science has been progress- ing with extraordinary rapidity, sufficient to make even that important work out-of-date, though not in all particulars. As in Reynolds’ System, in Virchow’s Handbuch, and in von Ziemssen’s Encyclo'pedia, so in that System there are articles which still retain their freshness, and must for many years be valuable for reference. Meanwhile in England Allbutt’s System, now in a second edition, has proved a worthy successor to Reynolds. In Germany, where such publications are planned on a vast scale in comparison with the American and English works, the great Handbuch of Nothnagel, in twenty-four volumes, has just been completed; and a selection from the volumes is appearing in English dress. The days of the Encyclopedias in France appear to have passed, at any rate years have gone since the issue of the last volume of Dechambre; but the Traite of Charcot and Bouchard has passed through two editions, and there have been issued several works of a similar character, though on a less extensive scale. American publishers have shown no little enterprise in the same rlirection. The Sy.^tem of Medicine, by Loomis and Thompson (1897-1898); The Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine (1895-1900); Buck’s Reference Handbook, second edition (1900-1904), and the American edition of selected volumes from Noth- nagel’s System, already referred to, have been of the greatest service to the profession. The need for new works of this type is strongly em]diasized by a com- parison of the pre.sent volume with the first volume of Pepper’s System. It seems scarcely credible that in so many directions in so short a time the entire outlook on the science of medicine can have been so revolutionized. To give three instances in illustration: our views on heredity have been profoundly modified by the .studies of Weismann, Mendel, and others, and we are fortunate in Modern Medicine to have the subject presented by Profe.ssor Adami in so clear and attractive a manner that it will be most helpful to all students. In no direction has (here been such progre.ss as in our knowledge of the chemical proces.ses of the body. At the same