An inaugural address delivered in University College, London : on October 1st, at the opening of the session 1883-4 / by John Tweedy.

  • Tweedy, John, 1849-1924.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural address delivered in University College, London : on October 1st, at the opening of the session 1883-4 / by John Tweedy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    to tlie study of physiology; but anatomy is notoriously incapable of solving the simplest biological problem. Dr. Daremberg, in bis learned history of the medical sciences, has observed that an examination of the history of medicine shows that the fate of pathology is bound up, scientifically and historically, with the fate of physiology; and that anatomy has not only at all times failed to reform physiology, but that ancient physiology, which was for the most part only a tissue of a priori speculations, has not unfrequently contributed to corrupt anatomy. Modern physiology has, however, amended itself by the experi- mental method, and henceforth is not likely either to miss its own way or to allow anatomy to go astray. On the con- trary, it has opened up for anatomy new paths, and has, at the same time, furnished more solid bases of support for the reiorru of pathology. Do not mistake my meaning. I do not wish to say anything that can in the smallest degree be construed as depreciating the absolute value of anatomy. I merely protest that its relative rank needs to be readjusted. Anatomy is of primary importance to the study and practice of medicine; it is the very ABC, without which no real progress can be made. As without an acquaintance with the alphabet there can be no literary culture, so without anatomy there can be no medical attainments. Were it not for this, and for the help which a knowledge of topographical anatomy renders to the operating surgeon, the educational value of human anatomy, consisting as it does almost exclusively of the observation and remembrance of unrelated facts, would he extremely small, while its utility as a means of intellectual culture is absolutely nil. It is only when anatomy takes on a synthetic character, and becomes comparative in its method, that it first assumes the quality of a science. Nevertheless, anatomy is indispensable in a medical education, and to be