Letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of Edinburgh, regarding the institutions of medicine / [Peter Reid].

  • Reid, Peter, 1777-1838.
Date:
[1821]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of Edinburgh, regarding the institutions of medicine / [Peter Reid]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    had adopted in good earnest the ridicule of Tristram Shandy, who says of a man speaking absurdly on a subject, that he was talking about it after the manner of great physiologists, who explain not what a thing is, but what it is not. On the other hand, our practical men cry out for facts, but the greatest practical head this country ever saw, observed, that medical facts turned out, in the infinitely greater num¬ ber of cases, to be no facts at all; and a late eminent Professor, whose death has left such a chasm in our school, seems to have been so much convinced of this, that he scarcely thought it worth his while to change any of his lectures for the last thirty years, or even so much as allude to one in a thousand of the medical productions of his day. Whether this was right or wrong, this is not the place to dis¬ cuss ; but I shall perhaps take another oppor¬ tunity of examining the effect which his lec¬ tures, aided by the almost unrivalled ease and animation of his manner, have given to the tone of medical thinking throughout the coun¬ try, and the influence which they exerted on the character of this school. But this is not the time nor place to nibble at the faults of a great man, although I really feel some difficulty to repress the desire of critical scratching, the itch for which is by far the worst itch in this place, and the lights and shades of his cha¬ racter afford such a fine opportunity for run-