could change the character of Medicine, or that, by the means at his command as a practising physician, he could elevate it from its position as a highly cultivated art, to a lofty science. At this time General Anatomy was unknown. Pathological Anatomy had revealed only the grosser alterations of the organs. Physiology shed no illuminating ray on Pathology and Practice. Pathology was almost entirely conjectural; Chemistry was incapable of solving the actions of living beings, and the attempts made were deceptions; while the microscope had not poured forth its revelations of minute and elementary structure. What could be done, under these circumstances, but to collect together the most perfect portions of the wreck of the methodical system, which, in reality, were the embodied experience and tested facts of centuries of practical observation, and to rearrange and reconstruct them into systematic order. By this plan he could, in the most effective manner, accomplish the main object of his Chair, the teaching of the best practical methods of treating and curing diseases, and of educating for society sound medical practitioners.”[1]
There were two prominent features in the medical teaching of Dr. Chapman, who was a thorough solidist and vitalist. The first was his advocacy of the doctrine of association between the organs and systems of the body in health and disease; the agency of their associated actions being due to “sympathy” or consent of parts. This doctrine will be found to be recognized in some form or other through the writings of the most celebrated physicians of all time; but the details of its expression were indefinite and vague, and it was not even admitted that the nervous system was necessary for the harmonious operations of the organs and tissues, for the performance of uniform functional acts; and hence sympathies were spoken of, for want of a more appropriate term, beyond the limits of those now admitted.
Cullen, in his speculations with respect to the agency of the nervous system, had recognized the controlling influence of it
- ↑ A Discourse commemorative of Nathaniel Chapman, M. D., &c., delivered before the Trustees, Medical Faculty, and Students of the University of Pennsylvania, by Samuel Jackson, M. D., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine, Oct. 13, 1854.
