Page:A Discourse upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America - John Morgan.djvu/32

 expose either their ignorance or their avarice. Why are they not equally contented with such a share of knowledge in anatomy, as they can gain from books, since this science can be better painted to the eye, than some of the other branches of medicine, which are altogether as necessary to be known by a physician? Are not anatomical plates and descriptions as intelligible to a student, as the philosophical studies of chymistry, physiology, and pathology are, from a mere course of reading? or is it of less consequence to gain a systematic knowledge of the materia medica, or practice of medicine, than of anatomy, which is of no other use to a physician than as it contributes its share towards explaining what diseases are? The others furnish him with the means and manner of performing the cure, and require, at least, as much labour and explanation as anatomy itself demands.

worthy and learned Doctor Lewis is of opinion, "that the medicinal history, or the knowledge of the powers and effects of medicine in the human body, though apparently a most essential branch of the healing art, has been far more incuriously cultivated, and still perhaps continues less cleared from the errors of former ages than any other science." Another writer on the same subject says, "it is an idle supposition to set out upon, that there are the