Page:Introductory lecture delivered in the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin, at the commencement of the clinical course, October 31, 1864 (IA b21916433).pdf/10

10 either by their attempts to cure themselves, or by the mischievous suggestions made to them by well-meaning but mistaken friends. The evil is that most persons think that they know more of practical medicine than they really do. If they were further enlightened they would have a juster conception of their own ignorance, and be less willing to interfere. No men have a greater unwillingness to meddle in the treatment of disease than those who, having practised it honourably in some department of the public service during the greater part of their lives, have retired from the field of labour. Knowing the progressive character of medicine as a practical art, they feel that it should be transferred to the hands of younger men than themselves, more conversant with the existing state of scientific knowledge than they can possibly be.

Assuming then that the object which students have in coming here is to acquire a practical acquaintance with pathology and therapeutics, let me call your attention very briefly to the different modes of studying these subjects, that you may have a better idea of the value and importance of each. These may be arranged under four different heads,—books, attendance upon lectures, clinical instruction, and grinding. Each of these methods has advantages and disadvantages of its own, and all must be combined if the student would be "in omni teres atque rotundus."

The scientific works of medical men, whether systematic treatises upon general medicine, or monograms upon special branches of the subject, may be compared to the maps or charts employed in navigation. Therein are laid down the results of a past experience for the guidance of younger and less experienced men following in their track. As well might the mariner think of starting on a long and dangerous voyage without the appliances of his art, as the medical man enter on the practice of his profession without a knowledge of the views entertained by his predecessors of the treatment of disease. This knowledge may, indeed, be acquired in various ways, but in none so fairly to the authors or so useful to yourselves as by the actual perusal of the