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of your ever mastering these pursuits in future, and it is absolutely certain that you can do so only at the expense of much toil, inconvenience, and obstruction. Anatomy, therefore, and more pecially that mechanical part of it which is so simple, you must resolutely and thoroughly cultivate while you are students, or you must incur the almost unavoidable alternative of uneasy and blundering ignorance respecting it when you come to feel its importance in your practice. This is one of the prominent and definite objects of the map that I would lay before you of the ground you are about to occupy.

I have already intimated, that without this knowledge of the construction and offices of the body and its parts, there can be no safe or rational practice of physic. It is true that without such knowledge, many have applied themselves, and that some do still apply themselves, to the relief of discase; and that with much success, and upon the whole with no doubtful advantage to society. It cannot be denied that the imperfect state of the science does admit of this. But it is right that you should know, that such men, who are guided purely by an empirical experience, personal or traditional, of symptoms and remedies, are liable to the most fearful mistakes mistakes from which a better knowledge of anatomy would have guarded them. And it is not to be doubted that they to whom this aid towards the formation of a right judgment concerning disease and its management is fairly laid open, and who turn from it through indolence, or reject it through prejudice, incur thereby a very awful responsibility. But there is another and an opposite error much abroad in the world at present, and one into which it is in some sort natural that the ignorant public should fall, but against which I would caution you, as having a tendency not less injurious than the former, I mean the notion, that he who is a good anatomist, is therefore, and thereby, a good physician, or a good surgeon. This is much as though a person who had learned to compute the dimensions of a field should, for that reason, be thought well qualified to dress and cultivate the soil. The truth is, that you may have a very perfect insight into the formation of the body, and the uses of its various parts, and yet be entirely ignorant of its disorders: nay more, to the most exact knowledge of the place, and purpose, and rela tion of every part, you may add an accurate acquaintance with the morbid conditions to which it is subject, and yet neither possess, nor approach, in consequence of such knowledge, one step towards possess. ing, a single correct notion concerning the

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medication of those conditions. These are quite distinct objects of inquiry, and they are much more intricate and difficult than those with which anatomy is conversant; yet they must be constantly studied in reference to structure and function. Anatomy and physiology, in their ordinary signification, relate to the healthy body in its various phases from infancy to agefrom the outset to the close of life; and with these the connexion of the congenerous sciences of morbid anatomy and pathology is intimate and obvious. deed, although for the sake of convenience we separate in some measure the consideration of the sound state from the diseased, you will form a very erroneous conception of these branches of the science, if you look upon them as opposed to each other. They illustrate the same animal economy as seen from different points of view, and under varying conditions: it is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine the precise boundaries by which they are divided from each other; and you cannot begin too early to investigate the alterations in structure, and the disturbances in function, which the various parts of the body are apt to undergo, and which constitute disease.

With respect to alterations in structure, they will early present themselves to your notice. The examination of the natural composition of the human frame is mostly carried on in bodies that have sunk under disease. You will therefore often meet with morbid appearances, where you are looking for examples of the healthy condition. This casual observation of the traces of disease will chiefly be of use by exciting your curiosity. You will desire to know the causes of these changes, the manner in which they arise, and how it is that they impede or prevent the proper actions of the part where they are found. It forms an important branch of the office of the professor of anatomy to explain these things. He will describe the various deviations from the sound state to which each portion of the body is subject, illustrating his lectures by appropriate specimens, of which a very complete, well-arranged, and most instructive collection is open to your inspection in the museum upstairs. By these oral lessons you will be prepared to follow up the study of morbid anatomy in the only way in which it can be rendered fully profitable; not as a mere department of natural history, but by associating the symptoms of discase with those changes of texture of which in the living body they are the visible and tangible signals. And this leads me to another most important object of medical science-an object that will incessantly demand the best efforts of your minds, I mean the recognition of diseases.

All disease consists in some change or other, produced in some part or other of the body. In a limited number of cases the change is confined to the surface, and declares itself directly to the eye; but in a far greater number the essential change is internal, cannot be seen or felt, and manifests itself solely by certain outward signs and exponents. It is one chief occupation, as it is in truth the main difficulty, of physic, to interpret the meaning of these external characters.

Some diseases there are, of which the symptoms are so constant and peculiar, that no difficulty is felt in identifying the malady, although its hidden and inward essence has hitherto eluded our apprehension. We have to deal with a group of symptoms only; but they are well defined, and afford a substantial object for our study. I may mention the ague, of which the phenomena are known to most persons, as an example of this kind. Others again, of which the inward nature, as marked by material changes, is clearly apparent upon inspection after death, are attended by symptoms that also accompany other deviations from health, totally different from the former both in kind and in situation. Instances of this sort might be adduced from the various disorders that waste the body. It is in catching the distinctive character of such complaints-in disentangling the confusion which springs from their com munity of outward symptoms-that the prime skill of the practitioner consists. The mistakes that are made in this matter are numberless and deplorable. I believe that the extreme importance of an accurate discrimination of diseases is not generally understood. It is commonly supposed that the identification of a disease leads in some direct manner to the means of its removal or alleviation; but it is not so. Under stood in this sense, the proverbial maxim, that the knowledge of a disease is half its cure, is untrue. All that we know concerning the proper treatment of the sick is derived originally from observation, not of the nature of disease, but of the effects of remedies. That rhubarb will purge, and opium lull to sleep-that loss of blood will occasion faintness-are truths which experience alone could suggest, and successive trials alone confirm. The most accurate knowledge of anatomy, the most exact discrimination of maladies, have not the smallest tendency to disclose them; they are purely empirical truths. But when once these effects were clearly ascertained by repeated observation, they became fit subjects for arrangement, analysis, and generalization. Just theory, built upon and growing out of such experience, forms the whole substance of our therapeutic knowledge; and this I take to be the true

statement of the question, which for so many centuries vexed the schools, between the dogmatic and empirical physicians. A better philosophy has, however, arisen in medicine. The true value of accurate diagnosis consists in this-that it fixes the objects about which observation is to be exercised, and experience accumulated. Once point out an infallible method of ascertaining the identity of a given disease, and the process of determining its beha viour under the influence of time and remedial measures becomes thenceforward surely, though perhaps slowly, progressive; and so by degrees the recognition of disease does lead to its appropriate management. The term experience is obviously misapplied, and the results of all observation are vitiated, when any doubt exists about the sameness of the objects contemplated; and it is mainly to this imperfection in the diagnostic part of medicine that we must refer the uncertainty and variation, both of doctrine and of practice, which have brought so much suspicion and reproach, and ridicule, upon the science.

Within the last twenty years the methods of distinguishing one form of internal disease from another have been wonderfully extended; a new impulse and a juster direction have been given to inquiry, and every department of medicine has already shewn a proportional improvement. Doubtless there are limits beyond which, with our present faculties, we can never hope to pass; but the science of medicine, considered and cultivated under its true character, as a science of simple observation, is capable of reaching a much higher degree of perfection than it has ever yet attained. The phenomena of the living body, and the laws according to which they take place, are not less uniform and regular than those which relate to inanimate matter. They are more difficult, indeed, to seize and to analyze; yet, if studied in the true spirit of the inductive philosophy, if traced by the rigorous deduction of general principles from particular facts sufficiently numerous, and verified by careful and repeated observation-the process being carried on by many minds, and it may be through many ages-they will at length submit themselves to orderly and scientific arrangement. The laws by which disease is set up will become accurately known; the mode and degree in which they may be regulated by external interference will be determined; and although, even then, many disorders will remain irremediable by human skill or wisdom, that, however much to be lamented, will be no dishonour to those whose attainmen's are limited only by the bounds which Providence has appointed to the art of medicine.

The things which I have spoken of thus

far, as necessary to be known, have all a direct connexion with the human body itself; they are, its structure and its functions its disorders, and the marks by which these are declared and discriminated. I have dwelt upon them the longer, because it is in respect to those matters which immediately concern the body as a subject of observation, that the great advantages of a well-ordered system of academical tuition are peculiarly conspicuous, and can least of all be dispensed with or postponed.

But you will have to extend your scrutiny, in the next place, to the things by which the body is surrounded, and by which it is capable of being affected. This opens a new and a very wide field of inquiry, comprehending every substance or agent that may exert a sustaining, an injurious, or a remedial influence upon the living man. I should greatly transgress my prescribed and proper limits if I were to enter minutely into this extensive subject; nor is it necessary. It will be enough if I enumerate the several heads under which it is technically arranged, and state shortly their relative claims upon the time and attention of an ordinary student. The particular uses and applications of each will be more fully explained by my colleagues.

Of these less direct or accessory branches of knowledge, the most ge. neral is chemistry, which investigates the intimate composition, the properties and mutual relations, of all material substances. It is strictly subservient to medicine-1st, in the analysis it furnishes of those things which have either a hurtful or a salutary effect upon the body, as food, medicines, and poisons; 2dly, in the information it yields of the natural composition of the various parts of the animal system itself; and 3dly, in the means it affords of detecting certain deviations from that natural state, which are in truth either diseases in themselves, or most important indications of disease, and guides to its proper treatment.

It is almost superfluous to state the province of botany, and the relation in which it stands to the science of medicine. You know that it treats of the history, habits, and qualities of all vegetable substances; and that the vegetable kingdom supplies a large proportion of our most useful remedies.

The department also of the materia me dica needs but little explanation; it is occupied with a more specific and particular inquiry into the nature of all those substances which, in small quantities, exercise a sensible influence upon the bodily organs and their functions; it describes their qualities and effects, and the modes

of preparing them for medicinal purposes. With these inquiries are associated the doctrines of therapeutics, which profess to explain the general theory of medicine, the operation of the agents of health and disease, and the principles which direct our endeavours to preserve the one, and prevent or cure the other.

Now of all these subjects of research I may say, that you must obtain as accurate a knowledge of them as you can, without neglecting or slurring over those other subjects, which for the present more urgently demand your attention, because they are indispensable, and because the means of pursuing them will be in a great measure lost to you when you retire from the schools, and the period of regulated pupillage has ended.

To learn chemistry comprehensively as a science, and correctly as a practical art, would require all, and more than all, the allotted term of your studies. You will endeavour to possess yourselves of its leading principles, and note carefully its methods; and in so doing you will keep steadily in view the application of these to the profession you have chosen. The outline thus secured may be filled up in future. Besides its immediate utility, the singular interest that attaches to the pursuit of chemistry will render it a delightful resource in those hours of leisure which will most probably occur to you all.

Botany again, pursued to its full extent, is a boundless study. It will be enough (Í humbly conceive) if you here acquire such an insight into its system and its uses, as may induce you, under the more congenial circumstances of a country life, to recreate your minds, and to extend your knowledge and admiration of nature, by its more particular cultivation.

The details of the materia medica may also be very conveniently prosecuted hereafter, if you bear in mind the fundamental lessons of the science, as they will be laid down by its Professor. One point, however, will deserve your especial attention whilst you are here. I need not insist on the importance of an accurate knowledge of the sensible qualities of drugs, as tests of their genuineness and purity, on the part of every one engaged in the general prac tice of medicine. Few of you, probably, will ever again possess such an opportunity of becoming familiar with these qualities, as will be daily before you in the fine specimens and samples with which our cabinets and museum are stored.

Besides the lectures on these collateral subjects, there are others designed to teach the art of medicine-the application of the science to its practical ends; or I should rather say, to put you in the most favourable condition for learn

ing that art and application;-I allude to the courses delivered by the several Professors of the practice of physic, of surgery, and of midwifery. To these lectures it is necessary that you should pay particular attention: and it is proper that you should be advised of their precise nature and objects. They are designed to exhibit the science of which they treat in its collective and existing condition. They sketch its history-bring together and set in order its scattered factsstate and discuss its doctrines-condense and simplify its records point out its deficiencies-and present the whole subject in that clear and summary view which is best calculated to win the student's attention, to excite his interest, to inform his understanding, and to assist his memory. Another object of such lec. tures is to communicate those practical rules and precepts which experience and reasoning seem to have fairly established.

You cannot fail to perceive the great assistance to be derived from a masterly exposition of this kind; which, by giving a connected view of what has already been done, enables the present inquirer to take a full advantage of the acquired knowledge of past generations, and, like a child raised upon the shoulders of a giant, to see even beyond that limit to which their previous speculation had extended.

There is yet another course of lectures to be added to the list of those which, by the existing regulations, you are constrained to hear-the course, viz. of forensic medicine. It is the principal object of these lectures to teach the application of the science of medicine to such judicial questions and difficulties as may require medical know. ledge and medical testimony for their solution. The importance of the subject, both to the practitioner and to the community at large, is great, and I should think, obvious. This branch of science, however, supposes and puts to the test a preliminary knowledge of each of the different subjects of which I have already spoken. The attendance upon this course is accordingly directed to be postponed till the second year. I shall merely observe, in conformity with the opinions I before expressed, that I heartily wish it could be postponed to the fourth or fifth year.

You may perhaps imagine, that when this comprehensive scheme of study has been fulfilled, your professional education is at length completed-that having mastered the essential parts of the science of medicine, you will be prepared to go forth, without more delay, to that harvest of active usefulness which was the grand aim of your labours, and for which you have made such careful provision.

This would seem to be a very common notion: but it is a very erroneous and a very dangerous notion. It should always be remembered that the science is quite dis. tinct from the art of physic. A knowledge of the science prepares its possessor indeed, but it does not qualify him for exercising the art. Rules of practice may be dictated by the teacher, and committed to memory by the student; but in applying those rules, the most painful embarrassment, the most pernicious blundering, may and will perpetually occur, unless a long apprenticeship has been served to the art itself. It is necessary that the prac titioner should begin with some acquired sagacity in the investigation of diseases, and with some acquired address in their management. These qualities neither books nor lectures are able to communicate; yet without them the earlier years of our practice must be full of peril—as well to the lives of those who confide in our skill, as to our own reputation and peace of mind.

There are many things which can be learned by our personal observance only; and the very faculty of observing requires to be formed, and the senses whereby we observe require to be disciplined to that end. The eye must be accustomed to read the signatures of disease which are often legible in the features, the attitude, the gait and manner of the sick person; to discern and to discriminate, what can never be adequately described in words, the various directions for our guidance which present themselves in the tongue, the general surface, the excretions of the body. The sense of touch, by which alone we ascertain the qualities of the pulse-the character of certain tumors— the nature of various accidental injuriesthe condition of many unseen parts-requires to be educated for those especial purposes. The ear, when long and diligently tutored, will detect the existence, and interpret the nature, of some very serious diseases, that disclose themselves to no other means of investigation; but it yields no information, or may lead to fatal error, if confidence be placed in its uninstructed sensations. The same remarks apply, in a less degree, even to the senses of smell and taste. There are numerous circumstances, also, relating both to diseases and to reme dies, which are unnoticed in books or lectures; which, in truth, are incommunicable; but which yet require to be seen and explained: and it is exceedingly desirable that all, even the most trivial manual operations, should be repeatedly witnessed, and even performed under proper superintendance; and that some degree of composure and presence of mind should be acquired by the familiar sight of bodily