Impediments to the study of medicine : a lecture, introductory to the course of practice of medicine / by J.K. Mitchell ... ; delivered on the 18th of November, 1850.

  • Mitchell, John Kearsley, 1798-1858.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Impediments to the study of medicine : a lecture, introductory to the course of practice of medicine / by J.K. Mitchell ... ; delivered on the 18th of November, 1850. 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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    or a quack, who gives medicine by a rule and not by a reason, and who can treat with even endurable correctness only obvious and ordinary cases of disease. Among the evils incident to the student's course is a disposi- tion to learn by rote; to charge rather the memory than the reason, and to overlook in his collection of phenomena and formu- laries the classifications and principles which can alone make his knowledge permanent and available, and without which he must remain on the ground acquired during his probation, or improve only by rare accidents. It is this bad habit of overlooking the principles which makes a student so often follow the practice of the shop in which he received his first impressions. As he did not reason then, nothing subsequently heard is rationally com- pared with his earliest medical conceptions, and he too often relapses at home into the errors and prejudices of his first teacher. A traditional medicine thus infests whole districts of country, and in many places, in which we might look for better things, the principles and the remedies of the last century remain masters of the field, from which have passed away the ancient roads and boats, and carts, and ploughs and flails. Nothing remains of that forgotten time but its calomel and its bile. Bile to cause, and calomel to cure, everytJdng. Look, then, my young friends to the new principles and the ncAV remedies which a progressive science brings to the aid of the physician. Endeavor to com- prehend the nature, organic and functional, of disease, and the reasons for the indications as well as the modus operandi of the remedies. Take care not to burden your memories with formu- laries adapted to diseases by name or by stage, but learn to compound your medicines according to the aggregation and pro- gression of symptoms, modifying them according to pathology, age, sex, temperament, epidemic influence, and climatic experi- ence. Learning in this way, you will be able to practice ration- ally, successfully, and improvingly. You Avill make discoveries, and assign reasons for them. You will encounter new diseases or new forms of old maladies, without doubts and fears; and having always a reason for the faith that is in you, you will not only be bold yourselves, but the giver of confidence to those who invoke your assistance.