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.

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    Tlie Originator of a new inetlioil of treatment, the Inventor of a novel ojieration, has based his practice and established his rules on the Science of his Art, and has elaborated them, often after }'ears of patient study or of experimental research and of practical investigation. The mere Manipulator accepts at second-hand the rules laid down for his guidance, and simply adapts them to the exigencies of the particular case, with perhaps slight and unimpoi’tant modifications, for which he claims an undue credit. NVe see this in many departments of Medicine, ill none more than in Surgery, and there is the same difier- ence between a Cheselden, a Stromeyer, a Graefe, a Liston, or a Fergusson, and tlieir successors and imitators, as there is between a jMaury, the inventor of Circular Sailing, and the captain of the Tea-Clipper who makes the shortest run home, and wins the Ocean Ihice, by attention to the rules laid down for his guidance by that scientific and distinguished hydrographer—or that exists between an Armstrong or a 'Whitworth, the Inventors of the most destructive engines of modern warfare, and the Artillery Officer who points the gun, and throws the shell sldlfully and truly, but yet in accordance with the rules which he follows, but never could have created. After all this, then, you will see that Medicine is neither a Pure Science nor a Simjde Art; that it partakes of both ; that, like Engineering, like Navigation, like Music, it is based on a Science, but is practised as an Aii; but that the Art can only be safely practised when its foundations are laid deep in the Science of Biology in all its branches, that Science which underlies the whole structure of the .^sculapian Edifice. It may be studied and investi- gated as a pure Science, it may be jiractised as a pime Ai’t, but to study it pm’ely as a Science would be a barren pursuit; to practise it solely as an Art Avithout reference to its scientific basis Avould be an unprofitable procedure, d'hey do best who combine the Lvo in study and in