On the earlier studies of the medical curriculum : address to the medical students at the opening of the Winter Session, University of Glasgow, Tuesday, October 29, 1878 / by John Gray McKendrick, M.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine or Physiology, University of Glasgow.

  • McKendrick, John G. (John Gray), 1841-1926.
Date:
1878
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the earlier studies of the medical curriculum : address to the medical students at the opening of the Winter Session, University of Glasgow, Tuesday, October 29, 1878 / by John Gray McKendrick, M.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine or Physiology, University of Glasgow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ceptions depend on scrupulous attention to weight; it accustoms one to the methods of synthesis and of analysis which are applicable to many other departments of know- ledge ; and it gradually unfolds a series of theories and hypotheses to explain chemical reactions, and giv^es us a glimpse into that world of molecular movements which are the hidden causes of chemical and physical phenomena. So far, the study of chemistry is an intellectual training of a high character ; but, in addition, the science is a storehouse of facts regarding air, water, food, and substances used as remedies, with which every medical man must be ac- quainted. The department of organic chemistry is also of high importance to the student of medicine, more especially in the field of what is known as physiological chemistry, or the chemistry of the processes going on in the body. The substances introduced into the body as food, those thrown out of it as excretions, and those which form its tissues and fluids, are mostly of complex chemical composition. To understand their true nature and affinities, or to see how they may be built up or broken down in the body, in health or in disease, one must be acquainted with the general principles of organic chemistry. Physiological chemistry is still an obscure department of the science, but it is becoming less and less so every year. There are many able men working on the Continent at some of its problems, and we may feel assured that every advance made will help us in understanding physiological processes, and how these may be affected in disease. The time is not far distant