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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    than from a manual of zoology. So, too, for the study and prevention of malaria and of yellow fever a knowledge of the structure, varieties, and life history of the mosciuito is necessary, hut the most recent infor- mation of this sort is not easily to be had from ordinarily jwocurable books. There are several ways in which a work of tins kind may be most heljjful to a man in general practice. It may put him on the right course and give him his bearings when he has been blown about without compass by every wind of doctrine. For instance, studied carefully, the mas- terly ])resentation of the subject of Auto-intoxication by Dr. Taylor, in the present volume, will give him the “light and leading” necessary for an intelligent appreciation of one of the most complex and confused depart- ments of medicine. While much remains to be done, we have enough positive knowledge to enable us to approach the clinical side of the ques- tion in an intelligent manner, unburdened from much of the nonsense of the auto-intoxication propaganda of the past twenty years. Accurate clin- ical investigation must accompany chemical research, and, while the two cannot often be combined by a man in active practice, there is no reason why he should not appreciate the problem with sufficient clearness to enable him to furnish unbiased observations of the greatest value and to give to his patients the benefit of the most advanced scientific knowledge. Since upon diet more than upon any other single factor depends the health of the community, it behooves every physician to give to this subject his closest attention. In fully one-half of the patients he is called upon to treat, indigestion plays a most important role, and this may be traced to improper food, improper methods of preparation, or to faulty habits of eating. The real difficulty is less with the profession than in getting the public to carry out certain plain and well-recognized rules. The Yale studies bring into prominence the importance of new views which will appeal strongly to physicians who have long held that we all take too much food and particularly too much meat. From the important section on ^Metabolism by Professors Chittenden and Mendel the practitioner will get the scientific data upon which he may base rational plans of dietetic treatment in many di.seases, and much information of the greatest use in his incessant propaganda again.st the gastronomic follies of the public. In these and in other .sections the authors will be found to have simplified the ab.stru.se and complicated knowledge of the chemical laboratories, and to have presented it in a form readily assimilable by the men who have to use it. Such, I believe, is the chief function of a system of medicine. VI. It cannot be too often or too forcibly brought home to us that the hope of the profession is with the men who do its daily work in general practice. Our labors are in vain—all the manifold contributions of science, the incessant researches into the complex j)roblems of life, normal and per- verted, the profound and far-reaching conclusions of the thinkers and originators—all the.se are Nehvshtan, .sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, unle.ss they result in making men better able to fight the battle against disea.se, better equipped for their ministry of healing. Gradually, often