Hints respecting the improvement of the literary & scientific education of candidates for the degree of doctor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh : humbly submitted to the consideration of the patrons and professors of that institution / by a graduate of King's College, Aberdeen [i.e. John Thomson].

  • Thomson, John, 1765-1846.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints respecting the improvement of the literary & scientific education of candidates for the degree of doctor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh : humbly submitted to the consideration of the patrons and professors of that institution / by a graduate of King's College, Aberdeen [i.e. John Thomson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be developed, guided and exercised, and in which habits of attention and application are most easily formed, how, it may be asked, is it possible for a student, ignorant of Latin and Greek, to profit by the perusal of a medical book, or to understand a medical lecture ? The terms of the medical art have been almost all borrowed from these languages; and it seems impossible to understand properly their meaning, without possessing some know¬ ledge of the sources from which they have been derived. We cannot enter far into the consideration of the phenomena of the different Functions of the Animal Economy, the branch of medical knowledge which has been termed Physiology, without perceiving, that to understand, or to explain these Functions properly, besides a knowledge of Anatomy and Chemistry, there is required also an acquaintance with Mathematics and Natural Philosophy; for the different motions of the solid parts of the human body can no more be understood properly, without a knowledge of Mechanics, than the composition of these solids can be understood without the knowdedge of Chemistry. # - <* ■ m When we inquire into this subject,” as has been justly remarked by Dr John Gregory, “ we find the human body a machine, constructed upon the most exact mechanical principles. In order, then, to understand its movements, we must be well acquainted with the principles of Mechanics. Considering the human body in another view, we find fluids of different kinds circulating through tubes of different diameters ; and, therefore, find that the laws of their motions cannot be understood