Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/15

Rh this subdivision to be continued, and we find succeeding authors treat equally on all these curative measures.

The advantages which we derive from anatomical knowledge are, that it enables us to judge of the nature and probable event of injuries and diseases, by the exact information we possess of the situation and connexions of every part of the body; that it enables us to perform the operations of surgery with confidence in ourselves, and security to our patients; moreover, a correct knowledge of structure is the only foundation of all knowledge of function, without which, we can never be able to distinguish the nature of the difference between health and disease, nor consequently what is requisite to reconvert the latter into the former, which, I repeat, is the only circumstance that can render medicine a science. Now, though the dissections at the Alexandrian school, were by no means so perfect as to produce any of the important consequences derivable from anatomy, yet they led the way to the general investigation of structure and function, and to the for-