Copy 2

Lectures illustrative of various subjects in pathology and surgery / By Benjamin C. Brodie.

  • Brodie, Benjamin, Sir, 1783-1862.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures illustrative of various subjects in pathology and surgery / By Benjamin C. Brodie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    only by the investigation of the disease in the living person that you are enabled to satisfy your- selves that the ulcers were the consequence, and not the cause, of the fever. The mere morbid anatomist may suppose that in the inflammation of _the cesophagus and trachea, he has discovered the essence and real seat of hydrophobia; but a more extended observation teaches you that such inflam- mation is but a contingency ; and that, whether it exist in a greater or less degree, there will be the same fatal termination of the patient’s sufferings. Then there is an extensive class of diseases in which we may say that there is actually no danger ; and of these morbid anatomy can teach us nothing although we may learn much respecting them, so as to understand their nature sufficiently well, by investigating them in other ways. We know as much of a sick headach as of pulmonary consump- tion; as much of psoriasis and lepra as of small- pox and measles. If you were to trust implicitly to what is taught in books and lectures, you would suppose that you must understand the nature of every case that you meet with, and be able to give it its appropriate appellation. But a very little experience in the hospital will teach you that it is not so in reality. No fault is to be attributed to authors and lec- turers ; for if they were to attempt to teach the science otherwise, they could not teach it at all. But you must take care'that you are not misled, and be prepared to meet with cases of which the nature is doubtful, and even with some which are absolutely unintelligible. Never allow your imagi-