Page:Introductory lecture delivered in the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin, at the commencement of the clinical course, October 31, 1864 (IA b21916433).pdf/6

6 He had too just a sense of the value of time to waste it unnecessarily. He could reason quickly, and he had sharp discernment; but he acted on the principle that a little extra exertion in the first investigation of a case will often save a great deal of trouble afterwards. By long-continued practice he was able at a glance to estimate properly the precise value of particular symptoms. It not unfrequently happens that some obscure symptom, scarcely to be detected by an ordinary observer, will throw more light upon the nature of the case than other phenomena that attract greater attention. Habits of close and careful attention, such as these, are clearly within the reach of everyone who now hears me, and demand no special ability on the part of the observer beyond patience, attention, and practice.

In the second place, he had all his senses, not only well adapted for the observation of disease, but carefully educated for the purpose. There are, undoubtedly, great natural differences among men as to the perfection of the several senses, and their power of discriminating minute shades of differences in the condition of surrounding objects. A medical man, above all others, requires to have them all—sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell—highly developed, and in a condition of perfect health. If he has not, so far as the imperfection extends, he is unfitted for his office; and it ought to be a matter of serious consideration for a young man labouring under any physical defect, whether he ought to think of entering a profession in which the want of any faculty is a serious hindrance to his success. But whatever may be the degree of natural development in which the senses exist in any particular instance, we all know that they are susceptible of great improvement by diligent cultivation. Many instances might be given in proof of this. A physician has been known to tell the nature of a case of illness to which he was called by the mere smell he got entering the house; others can anticipate the description of a patient's feelings or symptoms by merely reading the expression of his countenance; the evidence of some latent and unsuspected ailment betraying itself in his aspect or appearance.