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
Catalogue details

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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    subjects for our investigation. These are, 1^^, the morbid phenomena or symptoms by which we become aware that derangements have actually occurred in the economy ; Sd, . the morbific agents by which derangements of the economy are liable to be produced ; 3d, the more immediate seats of these derangements and their peculiar nature; and 4^/t, the morbid alterations discoverable in the structure of the body^ in those who, during life, have exhibited derangements in the performance of their functions. It is in the mode of considering these several subjects, therefore, rather than in the subjects themselves, that the distinction between General and Sj)ecial Pathology must be looked for. In Special Pathology, symptoms, morbific agents, proximate causes, and organic lesions, are considered, re¬ spectively, in those combinations in which they give rise to, or occur in, particular diseases ; and attention is directed to them only in so far as they are calculated to elucidate the natural history of the particular disease that may be at tiie time under consideration. In General Pathologv, on the other hand, the consideration of symptoms, of morbific agents, of proximate causes, and of organic lesions, or those branches of medical science which have l>een termed Symptomatology or Semeiotics, ^ICtiology, Pathogeny, and Morbid Anatomy, constitute so many separate bodies of pathological doctrine, in which the whole of the subjects falling under each depart¬ ment are methodically arranged and considered in reference to one another. It is easy to see how much more complete and satisfactory a view must be obtained of each symptom, mor¬ bific agent, proximate cause, and organic lesion, when treat¬ ed of systematically in connection with other analogous phe¬ nomena, than when noticed incidentally in those varying combinations in which they present themselves to the special pathologist in tracing and in describing the histories of par¬ ticular diseases. And if we reflect upon the circumstances under which the several subjects of pathological investigation