Via medica : a treatise on the laws and customs of the medical profession in relation especially to principals and assistants ; with suggestions and advice to students on preliminary education.

  • Langley, John Baxter, 1819-1892.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Via medica : a treatise on the laws and customs of the medical profession in relation especially to principals and assistants ; with suggestions and advice to students on preliminary education. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    neither more nor less ; the candle has only been changed, the materials hav^e not ceased to exist. Matter is indestructible Again, fluids and gases exercise an equal pressure in all directions, and water always finds its own level. A thousand fnmiliar examples present themselves, yet ten thou- sand foolish attempts at impossible inventions have been based upon ignorance of this simple law. Again, no force can be exerted except at the expense of some physical change which produced it (whether vital or chemical), and no combination of mechanism can by any possibility reproduce the power which originated it. To suppose otherwise is to assume that a given quantity of anything should be so large that it would never be rendered less by the constantly repeated abstraction of ever so small a part. Thus, any force applied to set a piece of machinery in motion is lessened by the friction of the parts of the machine, and would inevitably, under any possible circumstances, fail to reproduce the original power. To enable the student thus to educate himself in principles, it is necessary primarily that he should cultivate his faculties of observation. This culture in itself will prove of the highest value to the medical practitioner in after life. A small work entitled The Chemistry of the Seasons, by Mr. Griffiths, will afford a multitude of suggestions,