Introductory address to the students of the Extra-Academical School of Medicine, Edinburgh, session 1853-4 / by R.J. MacKenzie.

Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory address to the students of the Extra-Academical School of Medicine, Edinburgh, session 1853-4 / by R.J. MacKenzie. 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.

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    but it is not without its clanger. If you concentrate your energies on one subject of study, and devote your time to acquiring sudi a knowledge of it as will serve to outstrip your competitors; if you do this to the exclusion of other matters of equal, perhaps of gi*eater importance to you, your time will be badly spent, and the gxatifica- tion, which you or your fi'iends may derive ft-om your haAing obtained the object of your ambition, will be but a paltry recom- pence for the loss which such a course will cause you to smtain. I have heard this argmnent loudly xvcged against the system of awarding prizes; and if I o])served one pupil of my own followng the imprudent coui-se of which I have spoken, I would be the first to discom^age the custom, which otherwise, I think, is attended b}- many advantages. Let me caution you on one more subject, and I shall detain )^ou no longer with words in season. A few years ago the student of medicine was taught to observe with his unassisted senses what he could see, hear, touch, and handle; and it was thought sufficient if he observed what he saw and heard, and if he remembered what he observed. The recent introduction, however, into more general use of minute examination of structu.re by means of the microscope, opened up a wide field of research to the anatomist and pathologist, and consequently a wide field of observation to the student of medi- cine. To cultivate the acquisition of this species of knowledge to a moderate extent is very desirable, indeed it is absolutely essential to every well-educated mechcal man. But to cultivate it inuiioderately is to raise a stumbhng-block, on which many a student has tripped, and over wliich some have fallen. To be able to distinguish by the aid of the microscope the minute structm'e of the different textm'es of the body and of the blood, the morbid products of mflammation and of mal-assimilation, is a matter no longer of choice but of necessity to the medical man. But beware of allowuig yom* search after this kind of knowledge to divert your attention from what is of equal, indeed of far greater importance to you, viz., anatomy, both healthy and morbid, as you see it vAth the naked eye. I have heard of a student, who had an intimate practical acquaintance with the minute structm-e of bone, but was at sea when asked to demonstrate the different processes of the thigh-bone or pelvis,— who was learned in cartilage-cells and corpuscles, but who knew nothing of the physical signs of the different chseases of joints ; and I have many times heard warm discussions on the presence or absence of true cancer-cells in a tumour, by those who cared not to inform themselves of what was of nmch greater importance, the tangible signs by which the true nature of the same growth mirfht have been distinguished before its remo-^-al by the sm*geon's kiiife. I have heard the remark made by a very eminent London sm-geon, one who is far from under-rating the value of the microscope, that the time and talent which were wasted on its use among young men of the present day was lamentable. Whence, do you think,