Valedictory address to the class of medical graduates of the University of Pennsylvania : delivered at the public commencement, March 27th, 1858 / by Joseph Leidy.

  • Leidy, Joseph, 1823-1891.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Valedictory address to the class of medical graduates of the University of Pennsylvania : delivered at the public commencement, March 27th, 1858 / by Joseph Leidy. 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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    peutics, the consequences must be of the highest inte- rest. This branch of our study is frequently remarked as not having kept pace with the modern advances in chemistry, anatomy, physiology, and pathology; and you will haveimany opportunities for observing how this fact is due to a dogmatic, or to a merely conjectural procedure on the part of practitioners. You will be required to consider how the organization of man stands related to all the external objects which constitute the sum of the conditions of his healthy functions, or of the phases of disease to which he is subject; and you will have repeated proofs that in the science of medicine, as in all other sciences, conjectural explanations of particular cases, and theories founded on insufficient observation, are inadequate to the exigencies of practical use. You will be convinced by numerous examples of the value of my recommendation to explore all the exter- nal relations of your customary patients, which have any connection with those susceptibilities which may come under your professional notice and care. Not indeed that you can reach all the details of every department of learning, the principles of which are applicable to your purposes; but it will always be in your power to employ the conclusions of experts in each department, to suggest, to guide, and to enlighten your inquiries; and it will be your appropriate task to give practical effect within your own sphere, to that which others have es- tablished by separate inductions. Towards some of these you will be attracted by causes similar to those which made you choose the profession of medicine rather than another; and while you neglect no convenient oppor-