Medical study : an introductory address, delivered at the Bristol Medical School, on Saturday, October 1, 1836, at the opening of the winter session / by J. A. Symonds.

  • Symonds, John Addington, 1807-1871.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical study : an introductory address, delivered at the Bristol Medical School, on Saturday, October 1, 1836, at the opening of the winter session / by J. A. Symonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    our attention could be more fitly directed than to that of medical study. And in the first place I shall devote a few moments to a consideration of the objects of medical study. The first and principal object is the attainment of that knowledge which will enable you to cure, re- lieve, and prevent disease. The second, which must be considered very subordinate to the former, but still of some importance, is a certain degree of general mental culture, appropriate to the medical character. The knowledge essential to the first of these ob- jects is at once extensive, profound and minute. One great department of it is an acquaintance with the human organism in its healthy condition, compre- hending anatomy and physiology. It is necessary for you to know the relative situation of the various parts of the body, because their arrangement may be altered by accident or disease, and you may have to apply mechanical means for their adjustment; and also because you cannot, without such knowledge, institute any successful examination of the seats of certain diseases. The detection of an aneurysm of the aorta, the diagnosis of abdominal tumours, the reference of anomalous disorders to lesions of par- ticular nerves, are familiar instances of the occasions on which the physician stands in need of this kind of anatomical knowledge. But mutual position is a very small part of what you have to learn ; you must accustom your eyes to the natural colour, form, and volume of organs; your fingers to the natural firmness, softness, smoothness, roughness; your olfactory sense