A lecture on the importance of a knowledge of physical science to the members of all professions : being introductory to a course of lectures on the application of acoustics to the discovery of chest diseases, delivered to members of the medical profession, and of the Philosophical Institution, at Birmingham / by Peyton Blakiston.

  • Blakiston, Peyton, 1801-1878.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the importance of a knowledge of physical science to the members of all professions : being introductory to a course of lectures on the application of acoustics to the discovery of chest diseases, delivered to members of the medical profession, and of the Philosophical Institution, at Birmingham / by Peyton Blakiston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    13 be perfectly understood. Hence arises the study of Physiology, in which so many various matters enter, and in every part of which the laws of Physics and Chemistry are concerned. For there are in the human body joints of all kinds, levers, and pullies; there are forces acting in all directions; there are fluids in motion, and a pneumatic apparatus constantly at work; there are arches and cylinders, pillars, and tubes. It contains the most perfect optical instrument in the world, the eye, which receives every species' of im- pression conveyed by light, and through the medium of which the mind judges of every shade of colour, of dimension, and of distance. This body is often placed in a very variable climate, wherein the alternations of cold and heat are frequently occurring; and hence attention must be paid to habits, clothing, lodging, ventilation, &c., Avith a view to the preservation of that degree of heat which is best suited to the purposes of life generally, and the health of individuals particularly; and hence an acquaintance with the laws of heat, elec- tricity, &c., is required. It may be considered, too, as a laboratory in which the most varied and numerous chemical operations are con- stantly going on. The study of Chemistry is now, I admit, encou- raged and enforced; still students are too apt to limit their views of Chemistry to its effect upon the compounding and mixing of drugs; and the time is hardly passed away when the talent and skill of the. Physician would have been estimated by many, in proportion to the chemical knovyledge he displayed in grouping together different medi- cines in his prescrijitions. But in truth the compounding of drugs is the smallest branch of those subjects to the proper understanding of which a knowledge of Chemistry is absolutely necessary. By Chemis- try, in conjunction with Anatomy, is obtained a knowledge of the phenomena of digestion and assimilation. In the hands of Pro- fessors Tiedeman and Gmelin, it has been made to remove the veil with which these functions were so long covered, and to lay bare some of the inward workings of the body with the most won- drous precision and clearness. It is thus, and thus alone, that the true office of the liver has been ascertained, and proved to be subsidiary to that of the lungs; the former separating from the blood the excess of carbon and hydrogen in the shape of bile, which is not sufficiently carried off by the act of respiration as aqueous vapour and carbonic acid