A lecture delivered at the opening of the medical department of the Columbian College, introductory to a course on the theory and practice of medicine / by Thomas Henderson.

  • Henderson, Thomas, 1789-1854.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture delivered at the opening of the medical department of the Columbian College, introductory to a course on the theory and practice of medicine / by Thomas Henderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    analyses and combinations of nature and art, which furnish so many of the juvantia, and guard against the ladentia. While you will finally be called on to follow the knife of the Surgeon in the exposition of those awful scenes which justify him in the application of the principle, that it is better to con- tinue in life halt or maimed, than, for a part not vital, to sa- crifice life itself. If, then, the pretensions of Medical Science be such as have been stated, we ask what should be the preparatory education of the medical student ? Can a mind embrace, with any power, such a scope, which has not been well trained in the art of thinking ? Or can there be presented to your consi- deration a vocation which demands of the student more ex- tensive and deep acquaintance with general academick and philosophick pursuits ? The strength of judgment and polish of intellect, derived from the study of the classicks, as well as the fact that many of our finest ancient writers are still accessible, only, in their vernacular tongue, render a tho- rough acquaintance with the Latin and Greek a most im- portant accomplishment. The illustrations of French phy- siologists and pathologists, constitute a familiar knowledge of their language a great facility to the medical student, and that remark may be extended to other European lan- guages : while the stern and invariable tendencies of ma- thematical science alone give to the medical student the fa- culty of controlling apprehension, which confines the mind to that process of investigation, result, and inference, so as to prevent his being led astray in the mazes of speculation or hypothesis. We affirm that whatever is essential to con- stitute a prompt, luminous, expanded, philosophick mind, a