Volume 2

The profession of medicine, its study, and practice; its duties, and rewards : An address delivered at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital on the opening of the medical session of 1850-51 / by Charles West.

  • West, Charles, 1816-1898.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The profession of medicine, its study, and practice; its duties, and rewards : An address delivered at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital on the opening of the medical session of 1850-51 / by Charles West. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    imperfection of your memories by taking notes of what you see and hear; and you must do all this methodi¬ cally as well as minutely, in order that nothing may escape your notice, and that you may more readily learn the bearings of different phenomena upon each other, and become able to discriminate between im¬ portant and unimportant symptoms. It will not suffice for this purpose, to note those things merely which may strike you as most important; but you must preserve records of entire cases, observing them, and recording your observations from their commence¬ ment to their close. At first it will take much time to do this; and you should therefore begin by taking notes of only a very few cases, but taking them very minutely : as you gain experience, you will almost imperceptibly discover what facts are of little moment, and thus learn to make your histories shorter. Try, too, with reference to each case, to arrive at a diag¬ nosis for yourselves, and to lay down in your own minds the outline of a plan of treatment. The visit of the physician will thus be rendered doubly instructive to you; for it will not merely explain to you the real nature of the disease, and point out the appropriate treatment, but will also show you where the error lay in your judgment concerning it. Such a course of observation, continued day by day, and day by day recorded in your note-book, even with reference to a single case, will do more towards making you good physicians than the less minute observation of a dozen. Nor does the instruction which may be gathered