On the method of induction and its results in medical science : a lecture, read as introductory to the opening of the medical classes of King's College, London, October 1, 1836 / by Robert Ferguson.

  • Robert Ferguson
Date:
[1836]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the method of induction and its results in medical science : a lecture, read as introductory to the opening of the medical classes of King's College, London, October 1, 1836 / by Robert Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    morbid productions are repetitions of normal struc- ture, having the same ratio to the latter, that defec- tive forms have to symmetrical organs. That healthy tissues degenerate by disease into the early structure of the embryo, or the regular structure of some of the lower animals. In a word, diseased formations are reducible to those laws—few, simple, and grand, which regulate all vital phenomena. - If, on the other hand, the student shall consider diseased structure with relation to symptoms, the pursuit is full of difficulties and repetitions ; and its reward will not be in the study itself, but the end— that it will make him a practical physician. In pro- secuting the study with this view, he will find the same morbid production marked by symptoms, vary- ing according to the organ in which it is seated. Here the internal characteristics are subservient to the external signs of disease; while in the naturalis- tic view of morbid anatomy, there is a systematic roundness, if I may be allowed the expression, of knowledge, which warps the mind from practical views, and is injurious to the advancement of practical medicine. It is from the advocates of this school that we hear, that morbid anatomy is the foundation of me- dicine—it is, however, only one of its chief pillars. The object of the physician is not only to ascertain the ravages of death, but to prevent them; and this can only be done by marking the external signs of
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