Dissertations on the question How far are the external means of exploring the condition of the internal organs to be considered useful and important in medical practice? : for which premiums were adjudged by the Boylston Medical Committee of Harvard University, 1836 / by Oliver W. Holmes, Robert W. Haxall, and Luther V. Bell.

  • Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894.
Date:
1836
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dissertations on the question How far are the external means of exploring the condition of the internal organs to be considered useful and important in medical practice? : for which premiums were adjudged by the Boylston Medical Committee of Harvard University, 1836 / by Oliver W. Holmes, Robert W. Haxall, and Luther V. Bell. 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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    In the rational study of medicine, disease presents itself for examination under three principal points of view. First, the consideration of the abnormal vital or physiological actions which have taken place, and are still exerting their influence on the various structures, and organs, and functions of the system ; secondly, the morbid or pathological changes or alterations of structure which are consequent upon the deranged physiological conditions of the organs or tissues ; and, thirdly, the symptoms, or signs which give evidence to the observer, of such morbid actions or structural changes. The knowledge comprehended under the first mentioned of these considerations, if it could be fully developed and fully appreciated and understood, would be the perfection of medical science. It is this which constitutes disease, and like the principle of life itself, cannot be expected ever to be wholly unfolded to the human intellect. Symptoms, it is evident, are not disease ; they are merely the language, the signs, the appreciable evidence of some internal change, which is invisible to our senses in a great degree during life, and the