Introductory address, delivered to the students of S. Mary's Hospital, 1st October, 1874 / by Edmund Owen.

  • Owen, Edmund, 1847-1915.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory address, delivered to the students of S. Mary's Hospital, 1st October, 1874 / by Edmund Owen. 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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    Guard against placing too much faith in the ad- ministration of drugs, whose specific effects, even now, are not well understood. The science of medicine is greatly indebted to homoeopathy—that harmless domestic art—for having destroyed much of that blind belief in drugs which had descended through generations, and in allowing us to see how much afflicted Nature could do towards effecting her own cure, if left alone, or aided only by well-directed attention to hygienic influences. Much of your future success will depend upon the faculty you possess of observing and interpreting symp- toms, and of seeing how far bodily affections are the shadows cast by mental and functional disorders gene- rally. In short, common sense is often of much more service than deep technical knowledge. And thus we find the so-called man-of-the-world, with a vision unobscured by conflicting theories, and not looking too deeply for a cause, quickly restoring a lost balance. As soon as you have passed an examination in anatomy and physiology, attend with constancy the out-patient department of the hospital, for there you will learn most of the nature, aspect, and treatment of those every-day affections which will take up so much of your time and attention when you are in practice. The out-patient departments you will find to be— now that apprenticeships are abolished—the great link between you and the outside world of sufferers; and those persons who, in an excess of philanthropy, advocate their abolition on account of their tending to the abuse