On the best method of collecting and arranging facts : with a proposed new plan of common-place book / by William Augustus Guy.

  • Guy, William A. (William Augustus), 1810-1885.
Date:
[1840]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the best method of collecting and arranging facts : with a proposed new plan of common-place book / by William Augustus Guy. 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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    On the best Method'of Collecting and Arranging Facts, xvith a proposed new Plan of Common-place Book. By William Augustus Guy, M.B., Cantab. Professor of Forensic Medicine, King’s College, London, and Assistant Physician to the King’s College Hospital. The advantages of order, method and arrangement to all who are en- gaged in the pursuit of learning or science, are too generally recognised to require any comment. Without some attention to them it is almost impossible either to learn thoroughly that which is already known, or to add anything to our present stores of knowledge. Now, there are two ways in which we may hope to extend the boundaries of knowledge;— either by original observations and experiments, or by a searching and rigorous analysis of the facts collected by those who have preceded us. This latter employment of our faculties can alone give us a claim to the praise of learning, too often awarded to a useless and ill-assorted col- lection of facts and theories, loosely held together, and unprofitable alike to their possessor and the world. Some share of learning, in its true and best sense, is essential even to those who are engaged in ori- ginal investigations, as, without it, they may enter upon enquiries which have already been successfully undertaken, and find, after much thought and labour, that their pains have been bestowed in vain. But if some share of learning be necessary to all who devote themselves to the pursuit of science, how much more essential is it to those who are engaged in the study of sciences of observation. These sciences are characterised chiefly by the vast number of objects which they embrace, the compound and complex nature of the facts which they contemplate, and the varying proportions in which the elements, so to speak, of these facts are combined. Those sciences especially which have a direct bearing on the welfare of mankind become of necessity practical arts, and engage in their service a number of votaries proportioned to their importance, and to the frequency of their applications. This remark ap- plies with peculiar force to the science of medicine, which, in every country, and in all ages, has had a larger number of professors than any other science whatever; and, as a necessary consequence, has received scientific and practical contributions from a much greater number of hands. The surpassing value of health gives so great an importance to every appli- cation of the healing art, and surrounds individual cases with so much I interest, that medicine has become, of necessity, a science of detail, and I its records a collection, for the most part, of isolated facts, either really curious in themselves, or invested with attributes of wonder and impor- tance by the inexperience of those who have observed them. The en- grossing nature of the practical pursuits of the physician, by leaving him little time for collecting such facts as may form the basis of a wide ge- neralization, combines with the cause I have just pointed out to fill medical books with detached cases, hasty conclusions, and crude hypo- theses. Not that medicine does not possess its well-digested collections ■ of facts, and its true theories; all I would assert is, that these bear but a ^all proportion to its imperfect details, and its superficial conclusions. But the isolated facts which have been collected, and the suggestions which have been from time to Jime thrown out, form a rich mine of wealth which may be turned to good account if properly worked. There