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Glad should I be to moderate this too exact description of the effects of ignorant and presumptuous practice; but what judgment can we pass on those, who have been scarcely instructed in the first elements of medical science, and yet force themselves into practice, as if they meant to sport themselves with human life, and human calamities?
A very judicious person[1] has remarked, that Medicine is the science concerning which people in common take upon them to reason most, without having the least notion.—Who, that has not made Mathematics his study, will presume to argue upon any of the difficult calculations of Algebra? But when medical subjects are the topic, doubtless we are masters of them without study. It must be confessed indeed, if we know much about medicine without being educated in it, that our ideas of it are truly innate.
Abstract truth is at all times but a simple undivided object, yet has ten thousand counterfeits to impose upon the unwary. No wonder that the impatient ardor of youth, who cannot brook delay, or always take the necessary time to distinguish truth from falsehood, aspiring to reach the top of science by a rapid flight, hurries them on in a too unguarded manner, when left to themselves, and thus
- ↑ Mons. Süe, professor of Anatomy.
