Letter to the Right Hon. the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town-Council of Edinburgh, in regard to the Chair of Pathology in the University of Edinburgh / by James Syme.

  • Syme, James, 1799-1870.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Right Hon. the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town-Council of Edinburgh, in regard to the Chair of Pathology in the University of Edinburgh / by James Syme. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    posed to each other in their views as well as expressions,— the effect of which collision could not fail to increase very seriously the difficulties to be overcome. But there is another objection still more deserving of at¬ tention than either of those that have been stated. The chairs of the Practice of Physic and Surgery, Systematic as well as Clinical, are universally admitted to require practical men for their occupants; because the important subjects of instruction appropriated to them are not deemed safely taught, except by teachers who have had an opportunity of acquiring, and have afforded evidence of their possessing, something more than a verbal knowledge of the things they profess to teach. A Professor of General Pathology, on the other hand, need not be a practical man. He may be merely a man of re¬ spectable talents and application, well supplied with modern French books, and coloured delineations of morbid appear¬ ances, with the assistance of which he may not only appear to others, but even persuade himself, that he is truly acquaint¬ ed with the subjects of his study. Now, if a person so qua¬ lified were to teach General Pathology, or Pathological Anatomy, the student would receive his first impressions of the things in which he is to be instructed by his practical teachers, from a source ever-varying in its doctrines with the fashion of the day ; novelty taking the place of experience in determining the views of the teacher, and even altering his language at the dictate of every unfledged aspirant to patho¬ logical distinction. Early impressions are not easily erased, and the very vagueness of their nature, if established by ge¬ neral statements and the exhibition of drawings, instead of the objects themselves, would still farther oppose their eradication, in order to make way for those required in teaching the sound principles of medical and surgical practice. In illustra¬ tion of this position, I beg to state that, in my deliberate opi¬ nion, a moderately diligent perusal of the Treatise on Carcino¬ ma, by the Professor of Pathological Anatomy in the Lon¬ don University College, would fortify any student of ordina-