Letter to the fellows of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh, respecting the proposal to abolish the Chair of General Pathology in the University / [William Thomson].

  • Thomson, William, 1802-1852.
Date:
1837
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the fellows of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh, respecting the proposal to abolish the Chair of General Pathology in the University / [William Thomson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    each of the branches included under the Institutions of Me¬ dicine, has been gradually extending its limits. To meet the difficulties thence arising, three several expedients have been had recourse to, by those to whom the teaching of this department of medical education has been assigned ; firsts to comprehend in their course of lectures a short and imperfect view of each of these three branches; secondly^ to dilate prin¬ cipally on one of them, and either to treat the other two in a cursory manner, or to omit one or both altogether ; and thirdly^ in other instances, separate courses of lectures on these several branches have been delivered by the same, or by different teachers. On a diligent examination of the esta¬ blishments for teaching in the medical schools of Europe and America, it would, I believe, be found, that no uniform principle has been followed in obviating the difficulties that have arisen, in teaching the Institutions of Medicine, from the increased extent of the different subjects which they com¬ prehend. I must now take the liberty to direct your attention to the questions, What the topics are that have usually been in¬ cluded, and that properly fall, under the province of Gene¬ ral Pathology, considered as a part of the Institutions of Medi¬ cine; and in what respects these may be supposed, in a proper system of medical education, to admit of or to require being taught in a distinct course of lectures. To arrive at a satis¬ factory conclusion upon these points, it will be necessary to consider more particularly the relations in which General Pa¬ thology stands to Special Pathology or the Practice of Medicine. In the first place, then, I may remark, that under what¬ ever point of view we consider the derangements of the human economy ; whether, with the clinical physician, we regard them as they present themselves in individual cases ; or, with the special pathologist, as constituting particular genera or species of diseases; or whether, with the general pathologist, we endeavour to reduce them to their primary