Introductory lecture to the course of chemistry / delivered by Professor Draper.

  • John William Draper
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture to the course of chemistry / delivered by Professor Draper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    knows its springs and wheels, their reciprocal action on each other, and the end they are to accomplish. Read in the histories of medicine, and is there for any disease a form of practice that has not been tried! Where is the plant, where is the mineral, that has not had its turn ] Look through our works on the art of healing of the last three centuries, and mark their uncertainties, their contradictions, the entire diversities of opinion ; are they not an imperish- able record of the greatness of human credulity, and the littleness of human knowledge 1 Or survey the forms of practice which obtain in distant parts of this country, familiar to some of you and me. The doctor throws over his horse the long-accustomed saddle-bags, richly freighted with calomel, and rhubarb, and opium, — a heroic practitioner, — he goes forth to discharge his errand of mercy, and often prescribes intuitively, without the shallow form of asking ques- tions. But then he lives in a region where bilious fever is the name of every febrile commotion, and where hereditary rules, long ago handed down from es- tablished authorities, have brought the practice of physic into a form adapted to the feeblest capacities, and given for all diseases one grand specific, which will arouse the recuperative forces, and break up trains of morbid associations, and shake the gall-bladder with a vengeance. Dean Swift used to say that he had cured a nobleman of an inveterate cough, the paroxysms of which came on when an easterly wind blew, by nailing the weathercock that was opposite to his windows, so that it pointed permanently to the south. The sarcasm of that cynical churchman is at once a rebuke and an example to us. It may teach us how little reliance can be placed on written rules in the restoration of an intricate machine ; and a little investigation will often satisfy us, that instead of blisters and bleeding, these nails in the weather- cocks will answer much better. Thus much for a value of the knowledge of physical agents. We men are placed as isolated specks in the universe. There is not a force in nature which does not affect us; our very existence hangs upon their balancings and co- operations. With agents with which thus, as physicians, we are called upon to contend, shall we not become familiar 1 To carry out these views, I intend, in an early part of the course, to give you a general idea of the structure of the earth, the ocean, and the atmosphere ; the various laws which regulate each, and the phenomena they exhibit. Be- fore we can reason with clearness on natural events, it is needful that we free ourselves from many common errors and prejudices, which, imbibed in early life, pass with us as current truths. They vitiate all our opinions, and per- petually lead us to erroneous conclusions. I shall not hesitate to press into our service, facts drawn from other sciences, provided they are illustrative of the matter in hand. Under the guise of a course of lectures on Chemistry, I mean to teach you the application of physical science to medicine, — it matters not whether it be Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Astronomy, or any thing else. What they can furnish, that we will take. The custom of schools of medicine requires that a full course on inorganic Chemistry should be passed through. With this we shall comply, omitting for awhile all that relates to poisons, and their action on the human system ; this we shall go over more in detail, in the separate department of Toxicology. I shall endeavour to bring before you in the way of experiment, whatever is no- 2