Medicine, an art-science and its study : being an introductory address delivered at University College, London, at the opening of session 1868-1869 / by John Eric Erichsen.

  • Erichsen, John Eric, 1818-1896.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine, an art-science and its study : being an introductory address delivered at University College, London, at the opening of session 1868-1869 / by John Eric Erichsen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    18/42 (page 16)
    THE ART. The Art and Practice of Medicine may be looked upon as a Tripod, founded or based upon Science, Clinical Observation, and Individual Skill. The fii’st and chief Leg of this Tripod on which the Practice of our Art is supported, is doubtless the Science of Medicine, and the more rational it is the more certain will be the Aid, and the further removed from that empi- ricism and that shallow knowledge which deals with results rather than regai’ds causes, which looks to the Branch and disregards the Boot. I cannot give you a better illustration of the value of purely scientific researches in affording a sm*e base of practice, than in the recent introduction of the “Antiseptic Treatment” in Surgery as recommended by Professor Lister of Glasgow ; a gen- tleman whom it is with just pride that we may claim as one of our most distinguished pupils, who received the rudiments at least of his scientific and practical know- ledge within these walls, and whom I am gi'atified to say I had the pleasure of first training in Surgeiy, for he was my House Surgeon at our Hospital seventeen years ago. The application of a scientific observation to a prac- tical end to which I aUude is the following : Some years ago, Pasteur showed by a series of beautiful researches that the decomposition of blood and other sunilar fluids when exposed to the air was not due to tlie gaseous elements of the atmosphere, but Avas entirely the result