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sense of the word, was scarcely thought of at that time, and treatment was either empirical or mischievous. What I believe Harvey contributed, or would, but for adverse fate, have contributed to Medicine as distinct from Physiology, was a systematic study of Morbid Anatomy. In the following passage he speaks of the great benefit that would ensue from the regular observation of the structural changes produced by disease:—
“Sicut enim sanorum et boni habitus corporum dissectio plurimum ad philosophiam et rectam physiologiam facit, ita corporum morbosorum et cachecticorum inspectio potissimum ad pathologiam philosophicam. Quippe eorum, &c.” (p. 92 of 4to. College Edition).[1]
- ↑ In the same way that the dissection of healthy bodies is of the greatest importance for true scientific physiology, so the inspection of diseased bodies after death is no less necessary for scientific pathology. For physiology is the study of natural conditions, and must first be studied by physicians, inasmuch as what is normal is healthy, and the rule for its own rightness, as well as for every abnormal deviation therefrom. But when deviations from health, or any abnormal conditions are defined by the light of healthy structures, then pathology, the science of disease, becomes intelligible. Then also from a knowledge of pathology the practice and art of healing, and numberless new methods of treatment, will naturally spring. No one would easily believe how greatly the viscera are altered by disease, particularly in chronic cases, and how extraordinary the
