A treatise on pathological anatomy / by Carl Rokitansky ; translated from the German, with additions of diagnosis from Schoenlein, Skoda, and others by John C. Peters.

  • Rokitansky, Carl von, 1804-1878.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on pathological anatomy / by Carl Rokitansky ; translated from the German, with additions of diagnosis from Schoenlein, Skoda, and others by John C. Peters. 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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    tions to diagnosis made by Graves, Stokes, and many others, may be traced to these two sources. Occasional notices have been made of Rokitansky's work in English, Irish, and American journals ; and as most reviewers think themselves called upon to make an exhibit of the superior knowledge which they possess upon subjects to which others have devoted the undivided attention of a whole lifetime, it is not to be expected that Rokitansky should escape unscathed, especially from those who have never seen his work, and who are farthest removed from the field of his labors. The editor of the Dublin Medical Journal (see July No. for 1843) ventures a wholesale condemnation of Rokitansky's method of studying and teaching pathological anatomy, and that after merely reading a short but favorable account of the Vienna School of Medicine in Wilde's Austria; he says, The readers of this [the Dublin] journal, who have attended the instructive meetings of the Dublin Pathological Society, will have no hesitation in coin- ciding with us in opinion that the plan of teaching pursued by Rokitansky is little better than useless. He must have observed, that the cases brought forward at that Society, unaccompanied by an accurate detail of symptoms, and faithful records of the effects of treatment, were little better than worthless ; as specimens of diseased structure they were interesting, no doubt, to the mere morbid anatomist, but any of our museums conld have furnished, perhaps, infinitely better examples of the same alteration of struc- ture. It is not in this way that the science of medicine can be advanced; that object can only be obtained by placing on record an accurate account of the symptoms present during the life of the patient, the result of treatment, and the morbid altera- tions disclosed on dissection—this is the true method of study- ing pathology, and it is for this reason that the works of Andral. Cruvelhier, and others, who have pursued the same path of inves- tigation, have succeeded in leading to improvements in the prac- tice of medicine. We cheerfully admit that the above would be serious and fair objections, if they were true ; but all these things and more are done in Vienna, but not by the same laborer. It is well known-