An introductory lecture delivered in the hall of the medical department of the St. Louis University, November 4th, 1845 / by M.L. Linton.

  • Linton, M. L. (Moses L.), 1808-1872.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introductory lecture delivered in the hall of the medical department of the St. Louis University, November 4th, 1845 / by M.L. Linton. 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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    [18] I have thus in a general and summary way, without noticing the par- ticular portion and province of each professorship, indicated the nature, the difficulties and the importance of the subjects which are to engage our attention during the winter. They may he expressed in a few words—the composition of man, the arrangement of his structures, the properties of his tissues, the functions of his organs, their derangements and their cure. We expect to teach what is known, and to point out the mode of exploring the yet unknown regions of medical philosophy. If at the same time that we communicate to the student our actual knowledge, we can inspire him with zeal for its advancement, we shall have rendered him a double service. More has yet to be done for medicine than past ages and sages have achieved. It is not as the law, a study of twenty years, but a study which a long life time cannot compass. I feel disposed to repeat in substance here, the remarks which I made on a former occasion, for the benelit of those who can see in man nothing but matter and its proprieties. I regard the proposition that there is in man a principle in addition to matter, and superior to it, as philosophically demonstrable. Matter consists of ultimate elements. These compose our bodies and brains, as well as the inferior animals, the vegetable and the mineral kingdoms. The action of these elements of matter on each other, their attractions, their repulsions,, their com- binations, are the results of fixed and invariable laws. It is necessary action; under the circumstances it could not act otherwise. Such also is the action of masses, large and small of compound matter. Wa- ter flows toward the earth's centre, a point to which all matter is drawn by the fixed law of gravitation which binds alike, and with equal fa- cility, the falling tear and the rushing cataract. The giant play of ocean and tempest, the earth-rocking throes of volcanos ; the subterranean power, next to Almighty, by which are upheaved the towering mountain and the blazing island, the stupendous sweep of comets, men- acing destruction to worlds and systems ; the harmonious movements of the planets, that have suggested the idea of the music of the spheres, as they turned the seasons round—all this is but the action of matter bound up and bound down, in fate whose iron fiat has stamped upon it, the immutable decree, thus far shalt thou go and no farther, thus act and not otherwise. The same law as we have just remarked per- vades matter in its minutest portions and humblest acts ; oxygen com- bines with the metals; the acid and the alkali unite ; heat expands; cold contracts bodies ; the sparks fly upwards ; the acorn falls, in ac- cordance with laws or moving powers, which are irresistible. There is no choice; no freedom to act or not to act, to do or not to do. These laws pervade also the human system ; but there is something in man which renders some of his actions free; something which has the power of choosing ; something which in a given case can determine to