A clinical materia medica : being a course of lectures delivered at the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia / by the late E.A. Farrington ; reported phonographically and edited with the assistance of the lecturer's manuscript, by Clarence Bartlett and revised by S. Lilienthal ; with a memorial sketch of the author by Aug. Korndoerfer.

  • Farrington, E. A. (Ernest Albert), 1847-1885.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A clinical materia medica : being a course of lectures delivered at the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia / by the late E.A. Farrington ; reported phonographically and edited with the assistance of the lecturer's manuscript, by Clarence Bartlett and revised by S. Lilienthal ; with a memorial sketch of the author by Aug. Korndoerfer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    A CLINICAL MATERIA MEDICA. LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY. To-day we are to begin our study of Materia Medica. At the out- set, it will be necessary to give a rambling review of the subject. Before you begin the study of the details of a science, you must understand the construction of that science or art. Were it not for these under- lying laws which string together the Materia Medica into one consistent whole, you would have no need for lectures on the subject. The ten volumes of the Encyclopaedia of Materia Medica, issued by Dr. Allen, of New York, contain over nine thousand pages. These do not in- clude clinical symptoms, which would make several thousand more. Then recollect, each physician discovers something new each year, and so a great mass of knowledge is accumulated by a sort of compound multiplication. You can, therefore, well understand why the student might be startled at the idea of attempting to master such a conglom- eration. Nor could he master it, were he to attempt to do so by memory alone. Man's mind is composed of more than memory. Memory is the impression made on the mind by a fact. Recollection is another qualification of the mind, which enables one to call up the facts which have been memorized. It is understood that nothing which we take into the memory is ever effaced. It remains there forever. It may be covered with figurative cobwebs and never brought to light, unless the mind is so drilled or so orderly arranged that it may be recalled when occasion requires. The mind should be so drilled and its various faculties so trained, that, when an external thing occurs similar to an internal fact, i.e., a fact memorized, at once that external thing awakens into recollection the fact or facts bearing on that subject. This is very apt to be so with our feelings, perhaps more naturally than with our intellects, because the latter require more cultivation. Many of us are