A guide to the medical profession : a comprehensive manual conveying the means of entering the medical profession in the chief countries of the world / by Edwin Wooton ; edited, and with introductory chapter, by Lyttleton Forbes Winslow.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A guide to the medical profession : a comprehensive manual conveying the means of entering the medical profession in the chief countries of the world / by Edwin Wooton ; edited, and with introductory chapter, by Lyttleton Forbes Winslow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    58/444 (page 42)
    will afford him; hut to read elementary works alone, as many do, because they are easier to master, is a fatal mistake, whether or not the student intends proceeding to one of the higher examinations, for he gains only a half knowledge of his profession, yet is apt to consider his information complete; and the consequences, if he succeed in obtaining a qualification, are disastrous, both to his patients and himself. Method of Study.—Method and application are the steps which lead from ignorance to knowledge. A capable man without method may read daily for hours, and yet not advance so quickly as one of inferior abilities who works according to rule. Suppose a student to have entered upon his first winter at a hospital medical school and to be pre- paring for an examination in anatomy and physiology. The first sub- ject he must master is osteology, and he should work in this wise. With the anatomical work open before him, and the bone by its side, he should read the description of the bone itself—its articulation with other bones, paying no attention to muscles or other soft structures referred to; he should identify each part named, and he should con- tinue so to read until he can close the book and call every part of the bone by its anatomical name. Then he should open the book once more, and read with especial reference to the soft parts in relation to the bone. With a piece of chalk he should mark out the attachments of each muscle, and learn by heart the structures which pass through any foramina which may be situated in the bone, &c. The description of the bone—of the lines which carve outwards, curve inwards, &c.—is of very slight importance; indeed, it may be forgotton with impunity, for the practical knowledge a student who works at osteology in the manner I am directing him will gain will always enable him, if required, to give a more perfect description on paper of the form and characteristics of any bone than he could do by committing to memory its especial features as described in the text books. What is required is that the name of the bone be known, and the name of every part of it which has received a technical appellation; that the names of the muscles attached to it be remembered, and their exact situation, and that the names of all the other soft parts passing through or lying in relation to it be remembered, and also the articulation of the bone with other bones. So with histology and materia medica ; the student should work practically, reading the description and identifying every- thing described. A set period, commencing at a given time, should be occupied each day in reading a subject. As a rule, it may be stated that one-and-