Rapport sur le traitement du crétinisme dans l'établissement de l'Abendberg (Canton de Berne) : extrait des lettres publiées par le docteur Guggenbühl à Zurich, 1846.

Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rapport sur le traitement du crétinisme dans l'établissement de l'Abendberg (Canton de Berne) : extrait des lettres publiées par le docteur Guggenbühl à Zurich, 1846. 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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    cation. The most dreadful conséquences daily occur from an ignorance of this single fact. In ail these cases error is iné- vitable, without a knowledge of anatomy : it is scarcely pos- sible with it: in ail these cases error is fatal : in ail these cases anatomy alone can prevent the error, anatomy alone can cor- rect it. Expérience, so far from leading to its détection, would only establish it in men’s minds, and render its removal im- possible. What is called expérience is of no manner of use to an ignorant and unreflecting practitioner. In nothing does the adage, that it is the wise only who profit by expérience, receive so complété an illustration as in medicine. A man who is ignorant of certain principles, and who is incapable of reasoning in a certain manner, may hâve daily before him, for fifty years, cases affording the most complété evidence of the truth of those principles, and of the importance of the déduc- tion to which they lead, without observing the one, or dedu- cing the other. Hence the most profoundly ignorant of me- dicine are often the oldest members of the profession, and those who hâve had the most extensive practice. A medical éducation, founded on a knowledge of anatomy, is, therefore, not only indispensable to prevent the most fatal errors, but to enable a person to obtain advantage from those sources of improvement which extensive practice may open to him. To the surgeon, anatomy is eminently what Bacon has so beautifully said knowledge in general is: it is power—it is power to lessen pain, to save life, and to eradicate diseases, which, without its aid, would be incurable and fatal. It is impossible to convey to the reader a clear conception of this truth, without a referenceto particular cases; and the subject is one of such extreme importance, that it may be worth while to direct the attention for a moment to two or three of the capital diseases which the surgeon is daily called upon to treat. Aneurism, for example, is a disease of an artery, and consists of a preternatural dilatation of its coats. This dilatation arises from debility of the vessel, whence, unable to resist the impe- tus of the blood, it yields, and is dilated into a sac. When When once the disease is induced, it commonly goes on to