Suggestions for the consideration ... of the College Committee, when they make up the Report concerning the medical curriculum of the University, as ordered by the ... town-council, 27th Nov. 1833 / by James Sanders.

Date:
[1833]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suggestions for the consideration ... of the College Committee, when they make up the Report concerning the medical curriculum of the University, as ordered by the ... town-council, 27th Nov. 1833 / by James Sanders. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    there are certain substances appropriated to tlie healing art, which are especially employed to avert, counteract, or re- move those changes which proceed during disease, and these are derived from all the kingdoms of nature,—animal, vegetable, mineral. Their number is not great, yet their properties are subtile, their preparations must be conducted with tact and delicacy, and their combinations require cau- tion, discrimination, and judgment;—hence the Materia Medica. The principles of their administration demand an inti- mate acquaintance with their operation or effects, which can neither be acquired by merely seeing or handling them in- dividually, nor conveyed by any power of oral communica- tion, The person, to whom they are to be given, must be carefully examined concerning his state of health, and when given, the consequences must be assiduously watched, and this method of proceeding must not be relaxed during the multifarious commotions and aberrations of the vital and animal functions which characterize or accompany diseases ; —hence Clinical Observation, which I pronounce the right hand of medical instruction. Thus we have Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Materia Medica, Clinical Medicine. We have spoken of Anatomy in relation to the sound state, as the basis of Physiology, and in relation to the morbid state, as the basis of Pathology; but it bears a third, and certainly not the least important relation. The body is not only subject to changes in all its parts, in which the articles of the materia medica, or constitutional means, may be successfully used, but also to changes which require mechanical and manual aid, and in which, without such aid, the other means would prove nugatory, or even prejudicial; here Medicine and Surgery unite, and afford mutual bene- fit. For this department the student can attain the neces- sary acuteness, confidence, dexterity, and self-possession,