A discourse on the connexion between chemistry and medicine : delivered in the University of Pennsylvania, Nov. 5, 1818 / by Thomas Cooper, esq. M.D.

  • Cooper, Thomas, 1759-1839.
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A discourse on the connexion between chemistry and medicine : delivered in the University of Pennsylvania, Nov. 5, 1818 / by Thomas Cooper, esq. M.D. 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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    when they first entered on the practice of medicine, should prevail among them now—or that they should think lightly of a branch of science whose progress they have not traced, and whose present importance they are not sufficiently apprised of. How can they duly appreciate that knowledge which they have been at no pains to acquire, or inculcate its necessity upon others, when they can- not feel that necessity themselves? But twenty years has changed the whole face of chemistry, in its theory, in its practice, in its appli- cation. The physicians of Europe pursue it with increasing ardour, and the bands of alliance between chemistry and medicine are growing every day more indissoluble. Nor is there a school of medi- cine in Europe where a minute attention to medi- cal chemistry is not considered as absolutely indis- pensible to a medical degree: and I consider it as a deplorable defect in the medical education of this place, that the same sentiments are not inculcated on the young gentlemen who study medicine here.* * Extract from a Review of Dr. Marcet's Essay on Calculous Disorders, in the London Medical Repository.—It is truly gratifying to contemplate «< the change of opinion which the last twenty years have produced with re- «< spect to the importance of chemical scienco as a collateral branch of rae- dical cducatiou. It is now generally and minutely studied ; and the patho- logist willingly admits, that chemistry, in aiding his labours, has, like irri- « gation, fertilised a soil, which, if hitherto unproductive, was so only, from « the deficiency of knowledge in the cultivators to draw forth its riches. In. « no part of medical science, however, has the influence of chemistry been « more conspicuously displayed, than in the light it has thrown upon the « nature of calculi; and the consequent improvements which have resulted « in the treatment of these disorders. Hence the great value of every work «that can render this species of knowledge more familiar to the practitioner.■ « a fact which must plead our apology for bringing before our readers this « volume so immediately after its publication, while many interesting works