Copy 1, Volume 1

Lectures on the principles and practice of physic; delivered at King's College, London / by Thomas Watson.

  • Watson, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1882
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the principles and practice of physic; delivered at King's College, London / by Thomas Watson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/868 (page 9)
    cussing the diseases of the chest, I shall bring before you, in a general view, the manner in which the great functions of respiration and of circulation are liable to be impeded, or otherwise disordered. As preparatory to the consideration of the diseases of the abdomen, I shall treat, in the same way, of the functions of nutrition; and of waste, which implies an interruption of those functions. Still there would remain certain diseases, which would not necessarily find a place in this arrangement, inasmuch as their seat is uncertain, or only guessed at. Ague is one of these. Cholera perhaps another. It is quite unimportant whereabouts in the course such maladies are considered. I feel no concern about any imputations of imperfect or clumsy arrangement with which the plan that I propose to adopt may appear chargeable. I had rather not be cramped and hampered by attempting what abler heads than mine have failed to achieve, and what, in truth, I believe, in the present state of our science, to be impossible, a complete metho- dical system of nosology. My object will be to furnish as much instruction and information as I can, in the way that seems most likely to be practically useful to you. Ague I shall take leave to include among the disorders of the nervous system; and with it, the important subject of malaria will necessarily engage much of our attention. The great question of contagion I shall consider in connexion with continued fever, which I rank among that remarkable class of diseases, the contagious exanthemata of Cullen. Of sympathetic and of hectic fever, I must speak when upon the subject of inflammation. This, then, is a sketch of the method I propose to follow. In the earlier lectures, with the general pathology, I shall endeavour to lay down principles. To these principles I shall continually refer, as occasions offer, both in those prefatory remarks with which I purpose to introduce the diseases belonging to the several great systems that contribute to form the body; and also in what I shall subsequently have to say concerning those diseases themselves in detail. In this way I hope to combine the advantage of repetition, which was the peculiar advantage of two short courses in a season, with that of greater completeness, which forms the recommendation of a single extended course. The same great advantage of repeti- tion—or I should rather say of recapitulation—will be further aimed at in the stated examinations of the class. Such being a summary of the topics to be embraced in the ensuing series of lectures, and of the order in which I hope to