First principles of medicine / by Archibald Billing.

  • Billing, Archibald, 1791-1881.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First principles of medicine / by Archibald Billing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library at Emory University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, Emory University.

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    six or seven years; when the rising members who had been my clinical secretaries,—Drs. Macbraire and W. J. Little (the latter now Professor of Comparative Anatomy, alum- nus dignissimus of Miiller and Grant), Messrs. Hamilton, Adams, Curling, &c, — being able to relieve me, I con- tinued only the lectures, instructions in the wards, and once a week an anatomical demonstration, illustrating cases by recently obtained specimens, or by those in the exten- sive collection of pathological anatomy in the museum. In tins mode I persevered up to the present session (1836), when, from being appointed to the University of London, it became impossible for me to continue it. I have of late years had the satisfaction of finding the example very ge- nerally followed in the metropolis, besides that of witness- ing the success of the school in which it was first regularly established. The medical officers of the London Hospital, I must also observe, were among the first who were mainly instrumental in introducing auscultation; and I am sur- prised that it is not yet by any means generally adopted. It is a source of real regret to me that so few medical men have taken the trouble, or known how, to avail themselves of this invaluable and indispensable method of detecting, so as to combat, the most deadly diseases of the chest. On this score Dr. T. Davies gained a well-earned cele- brity ; he not merely gave lectures to pupils, but col- lected the members of the profession at the east end of the town, at his own house, and instructed them in this almost new sense of perception. From the time he be- came one of the medical officers of the London Hospital, in 1829, I derived great assistance from him in the clinical department, in the instruction of those young gentlemen who had the good sense to avail themselves of the opportunities afforded them of learning ausculta- tion and the use of the stethoscope. One cannot be much surprised that the multitude are slow in adopting what in some instances has been treated with neglect and