SKETCH FOR A MEDICAL FDUCATON.
Printed J. Lind M.D. F.R.S. Windsor.
1800.
SKETCH for a MEDICAL EDUCATION. by J*L. M D. F R S.
After having attained a competent knowledge of the Languages necessary to acquire those Sciences that are requisite to the study of Medicine; and to enable the Student to read and consult the various Authors that have written on Physic. MATHEMATICS claims his first attention.
Without the knowledge of Mathematics it is impossible to understand NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, a Science by which the Laws, and Oeconomy of nature, and the Human body, can only be understood; as also the many causes that operate upon men and all nature.
ANATOMY being the foundation of medical knowledge, it is therefore to be studied with the greatest care and attention. Its intricacy also requires the aid of the best Professors; and that the Pupil himself practice frequent dissections to attain this most necessary part of a Medical Education. Without the knowledge of Anatomy, it is impossible either to discover the seat, nature, or cure, of Diseases. In Surgery no operation can be performed with safety or with much probability of success to the Patient. From dissections he likewise learns the nature of many hidden Disorders, and when similar symptoms occur to know the Disease under which the Patient labours. It also enables, the Physician or Surgeon when called upon by a Court of Justice, to determine with certainty whether Death has been occasioned from a natural cause, or from violence; hence he becomes the means of acquitting the innocent, and of condemning the guilty; but if ignorant of Anatomy, perhaps the contrary.
CHEMISTRY is an other necessary part of a Medical Education, as without a knowledge of it we must ever be ignorant of the various chemical Processes that are constantly going on in the Animal oeconomy upon whom depends health or disease, and from a true knowledge of whom, we are greatly instucted how to preserve the first, and to cure the latter also the Physician is liable to give Prescriptions that cannot be compounded or if they could, He is ignorant of the means by which it can be done. Some efficacious medicines he frequently destroys by his injudicious compositions, while other substances even innocent and inert ones, are rendered injurious and highly poisonous.
A knowledge of the MATERIA-MEDICA is also necessary to every practitioner of Medicine, without which he is ignorant of the means of cure, notwithstanding the Disease is known to him: Also, altho he is acquainted with the powers of a few medicines, he will find himself foiled for want of a more extended knowledge of the Materia-Medica, the constitutions of some people, differing as much from that of mankind in general: as if they were of a different Species. Therefore what proves useful in a disease with most people, with some it may be injurious.
The Materia-Medica being an extensive Science, requiring the aid of method, BOTANY and NATURAL-HISTORY should therefore make a part of the education of every Physician; the knowledge of them also helps to abridge the study of the Materia-Medica, there being frequently an analogy in the virtues of bodies of the same Genus.
Lectures on the THEORY of MEDICINE, may now be studied. In this course is also taught PHYSEOLOGY & PATHOLOGY, both absolutely requisite to a Medical Education. Although the different Systems of Physic are imperfect, yet as they serve for a clew to guide and direct a Physician in his procedure of Cure, by keeping him from confounding one thing with an other, they are therefore of the greatest utility in the Practice of Medicine; more especially as all Practitioners have a natural tendancy to empiricism.
The PRACTICE of PHYSIC is the last, and chief design, of medical study. This part of medical knowledge is to be attained from hearing the Lectures of eminent Professors, and by reading, but particularly by attending Hospitals, where Clinical Lectures are delivered to the Students, in which are generally given the History of the Disease under which the Patient labours, the purpose proposed, for the administering, of this or that medicine, and their effects upon the Patient pointed out; lastly if the patient dies, the cause of his death is more evidently pointed out and shown to the Students, by the dissecton of the morbid body.
LECTURES attended by J*L. in the University of EDINBURGH.
1752 Geometry.
1753 Conic-sections and Algebra,
1754 Natural-Philosophy. Astronomy.
MEDICINE.
1755 Anatomy. Materia-Medica.
1756 Anatomy. Chemistry. Institutes of Medicine. Botany.
1757 Chemistry. Materia-Medica. Practice of Medicine. Infirmary. Botany.
1758 Chemistry. Anatomy. Practice of Medicine. Infirmary. Clinical-Lectures.
1759 Chemistry. Midwifery. Institutes of Medicine. Practice of Physic. Infirmary. Clinical-Lectures.
1760 Midwifery. Clinical-Lectures. Materia-Medica.
In LONDON.
1761 Anatomy.
1764 Chemistry. Anatomy.
In EDINBURGH.
1767 Institutes of Medicine. Practice of Physic.
1768 September 12, obtained the Degree of Doctor of Physic
vide Thesaurus Medicus Edin. novus Vol. 1. p. 116.
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Printed J. Lind M.D. F.R.S. Windsor.
1800.