Internal medicine / by Sir Humphry Rolleston.

  • Rolleston, Humphry Davy, Sir, 1862-1944.
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Internal medicine / by Sir Humphry Rolleston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CLIO MEDICA INTERNAL MEDICINE INTRODUCTION COMPLETE knowledge of a science is impossible without an acquaintance with the history of its development, which has an educational value in supplying a clear idea of how its present position has been reached, by showing how pitfalls and fallacies can be avoided, and by indicating fresh avenues for investigation. In Napoleon’s words, “the only guide to the future is the past.” A correct per¬ spective of medical history should insure that principles established long ago shall be remem¬ bered; though it must be admitted that in a number of instances an advance has been made or a new conception originated and yet has failed to attract any notice until rediscovered many years later. Further, a knowledge of history helps to discount fads and fashions of the moment, and breeds humility by recalling how much our predecessors accomplished in circumstances so much less favorable than our own for research. The history of medicine has three aspects: the first is the general study of philosophy, chiefly of interest in relation to the study of the mind and the evolution of ideas; the second deals with the lives and works of medical men,|which touches the first on the one hand and biography