Pathological researches : Essay I : On malformations of the human heart : illustrated by numerous cases, and five plates, containing fourteen figures : and preceded by some observations on the method of improving the diagnostic part of medicine / by J.R. Farre, M.D.

  • Farre, J. R. (John Richard), 1775-1862.
Date:
1814
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pathological researches : Essay I : On malformations of the human heart : illustrated by numerous cases, and five plates, containing fourteen figures : and preceded by some observations on the method of improving the diagnostic part of medicine / by J.R. Farre, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    ADVERTISEMENT In investigating diseases by anatomy, the author chiefly proposes to contribute to the diagnostic part of medicine. The study of symptoms, without regard to the organic changes which gave rise to them, leads to a confused know- ledge of the genera, species, and varieties of interna] dis- eases. The Clinical Physician, who has never compared the morbid appearances with the corresponding histories of cases, can only offer a conjecture respecting the seat, and the kind of disease, under which a patient suffers. Very commonly, in giving his opinion of the case, he will content himself with saying, that his patient labours under some disease of the liver—some disease of the heart—some disease of the brain,—&c. This mode of ex- pression is so familiar, that every medical man continually hears it, nay, often uses it. But if words be the signs of ideas, how loose and imperfect must be the conceptions of diseases, which, by the very expression, are thus rudely blended and confounded! What other than an empirical method of treatment can be founded on a diagnosis so purely conjectural! The evidence on which the practice of medicine rests, is probable, and the reasoning is analogical. A learned writer