The introductory lecture of a course upon state-medicine / [John Elliotson].

  • Elliotson, John, 1791-1868
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The introductory lecture of a course upon state-medicine / [John Elliotson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    putation, and to give you an account of the most remark¬ able trials in which medical opinions have been de¬ livered. While this elucidates, it will also relieve the attention, and complete the proof of State-Medicine being at once interesting and important. Some will allow this to the furthest extent, but con¬ ceive that the separate study of State-Medicine is su¬ perfluous,—that all its subjects are sufficiently learnt during the acquisition of the common heads of medical education. I am, indeed, happy that I am not attempting to impose upon you a fresh study: that what I purpose to teach is chiefly a different application of some of the knowledge communicated in other lectures, and a more copious detail of certain points that is pos¬ sible in them. Neither do I deny, but on the contrary wish to urge in the strongest manner, that what I teach will prove of little utility without the instruction which the other lectures afford; and I am ready to concede that this instruction alone will, on many occasions, enable you to acquit yourself in Medico-Legal inqui¬ ries with credit and satisfaction. No practitioner even moderately informed need mistake, as Hippocrates* confesses he once did, a fracture for a suture; or, on the other hand, be rendered contemptible in a court of jus¬ tice, by the declaration of a second surgeon (what really happened) that instead of a fissure, there is really nothing to be discovered but the sagittal suture. Nor can he be in danger of giving evidence like that of a worthy man, who, on a trial for murder, said, “ I was sent for to open the body of the deceased, on the coroner’s inquest. I found in the sternum a small wound. * Dc Morb. Vulcr. Lib. v. Sect. vii. 27.