Introductory lecture to the course upon physiology and pathology, in the Hahnemann Medical College / by R. Ludlam.

  • Ludlam, R. (Reuben), 1831-1899.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture to the course upon physiology and pathology, in the Hahnemann Medical College / by R. Ludlam. 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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    disease and decline. Pain is the price of pleasure; and life has its counterpart in death. And thus, while day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, heat and cold, light and darkness follow each other, shall we find health and sickness, life and death, the common and universal inheritance both of the animal and of the vegetable creation. But despite this truth, it cannot be doubted that, through a want of conformity to the dictates of reason and propriety, mankind have entailed upon themselves an immense amount of suffering and inconvenience which might have been averted. These errors it is the province of the physician to shun. A knowledge of the human organism, in its healthy and dis- eased states, and in all its relations, dietetic and doctrinal, calamitous and curative, to the outer world, covers an immense field, and involves an extraordinary amount of research. Here, then, is your sphere of study. Not, indeed, with a view to thwart Providence; nor yet with a vain boasting that to add years to a neighbor's life were as easy as to speak the word; but designing to prevent a premature sorrow; to assuage the keenness of one's anguish; to harmonize the outer circumstances of life with its inner conditions; and so to diminish the number of diseases, as possibly to increase the longevity of the race. To build a ship requires a variety of material. The slen- der ties are as requisite as the great timbers; the screws as the sails; the hawser is as necessary as the hull. The orio-in and properties of every contribution to the floating palace is a subject for close and careful study. Inasmuch, therefore, as man, the head and front of God's creation, is supe- rior to the work of his own hands; as his physical barque is more preciously freighted than is any other—from the gondola to the Great Eastern—so is it requisite that we subject its every part to the most careful analysis, and learn, if we may, its conditions in health and in disease. In the pursuit of this study, there are difficulties and obsta- cles to be encountered which may, at first sight, appear almost