Remarks on the present state of the medical profession : shewing chiefly the necessity for the division of labour in its practice / by Leonard Stewart.

  • Stewart, Leonard, 1798-1849.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the present state of the medical profession : shewing chiefly the necessity for the division of labour in its practice / by Leonard Stewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    what is actually done by the medical man to aid his patient; and which, (be he a physician, a surgeon, or an accoucheur,) it is wrong to call a science. It is decidedly an experimental art; the art, say, of applying the medical sciences ; the art of healing. There is this constant and essential difference between science and art; thtit in the one, there are either certain fixed axioms, forming the basis of immense masses of knowledge; or some leading principles, to which may be refer- red innumerable dispersed facts : and these, when a little arranged, are readily formed into a system. Now nothing is more easily learned, than a system : and consequently, there are many persons, who go not themselves into the laby- rinths of science, but yet have a key to them ; who do not partake in the toils and difficulties of plodding men, but await the result of their labours; and, in this way, gain a general ac- quaintance with all the known branches of human knowledge; and would be ready for as many more, should they be invented. Thus, with regard to science, we often see the illus- tration of the old proverb—One man builds a