Report of the conversazione of the Belfast Clinical and Pathological Society, held on the termination of the third session, at the Corn Exchange Hall, April 30, 1856, with which is incorporated the address of the President.

  • Conversazione of the Belfast Clinical and Pathological Society 1856)
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the conversazione of the Belfast Clinical and Pathological Society, held on the termination of the third session, at the Corn Exchange Hall, April 30, 1856, with which is incorporated the address of the President. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    sation of the heart, the effects of ligatures, of bleeding, and other circumstances, ought to manifest themselves in order to confirm his view ; and that he had referred to a multiform and varied experience for the evidence that it was so confirmed. The simple fact is, the elements of this great discovery were previously well and generally known. Pabricius, as I have observed, was upon the very verge, yet missed it. He supplied, however, the last link in that chain of evidence which put Harvey upon the track. Harvey discovered the circulation, not in the manner that a new mineral or a new plant might be casually observed for the first time, hut solely as an inductive truth. He had the same facts to deal with as many of his prede- cessors. In their hands they were isolated, un- productive, and non-suggestive. He was the first to place them in relation, harmony, and mutual dependence. And, in the true philosophic spirit of Baconian reasoning, he cast aside the unsuiiported imaginings of ancient medicine, seized the facts actually observed, constructed others with his own hands, and raised that immortal structure which the progress and the test of time, have only tended to consolidate. Harvey was a true disciple of nature. Whatever, before his time, had had her sanction, he was satisfied with. He himself questioned her eagerly, and carefully noted her replies; and, though totally and ne- cessarily unacquainted with the modern facts of natural philosophy or physiology, he unveiled to an astonished world the beauty and simplicity of the Creator’s design. This reference to one of the great eras in physiological history leads me to my second pro- position, that the second stage in any department of knowledge is distinguislied by the prevalence of a rational observation, or, in other words, the acquisition of philosophic truth by a process of inductive reasoning. Though Bacon was the first to insist upon this particular method of investigation, though he was the first to throw this yoke upon the ar- dent labourers of the mental world, still we find in the circumstances connected with the growth of the grand discovery to which I have just drawn your particular attention, there is abundant evi- dence to prove that Harvey had anticipated the very system with which the name of Bacon will be for ever associated. As another memorable instance of the power of rational observation, I may here allude to the splendid discoveries of Sir C. Bell, and later still, of Hr. Marshall Hall. In this particular depart- ment of physiological research, the conjectural age seems to have been unusually protracted. Galen taught that the nerves are the channels of perception, but he, and for a long time his successors, not unfrequently confounded nerves and tendons. The division of the nerves accord- ing to their connexion with the nervous centres. the examination of the different ganglions or knots which occur upon them, and the unravelling of the brain according to its proper structure, was the work of Willis in 1664. But all this came far short of the views which Bell and Hall for the first time propounded to the world, and these, be it remarked, were simply the result of the most careful, but at the same time ordinary ob- servation and experiment as abasis,and of a calm judgment upon the data thus laboriously estab- lished. It must be remembered, however, that there is a considerable difference in the character of these two discoveries. Sir C. Bell dissected the nervous ramifications, and at the conclusion of his work was enabled to say with the utmost confidence, this is a nerve of motion, and this other is a nerve of sensation. On the other hand, Marshall Hall predicates certain functions of a portion of the nervous sys- tem, based chiefly if not entirely upon clinical observation, and the result of systematic expe- riment. The object of both, nevertheless, is ulti- mately attained in the same way. In this and the preceding example, it wiU be” observed, that most important advances were made in medical knowledge without other aid than what a well-regulated observation was suf- ficient to impart. But even these, great undoubt- edly as they are, were but a small portion of that knowledge of the circulation and the nervous system which even the merest tyro of the pre- sent day possesses. We are now cognizant of the most intimate nature of the vital fluid, and its actions in the minutest vessels, and also of the nervous substance wherever situated. These considerations bring me to the last stage through which our own knowledge has passed, namely, that which Is characterized by the result of rational observation, aided by scientific instru- ments. I allude especially to that vast increase of knowledge which is mainly due to the careful use of the MicEOscoPE, the employment of chemical analysis, and the result of electric agents, in health and disease. Wherever these agents have had the proper field to labour in, the yield has been unprecedented; though it must he ad- mitted that all are as yet in an infant con- dition, but suet as promise for the future the brightest prospects. (Hear.) It were totally impossible, in the brief space which I intend to occupy, to refer in a parti- cular manner to these immense results. I shall therefore, confine myself to a notice of that nev world which the revelations of the microscopi have unfolded to the medical practitioner We are accustomed to speak of the immensity of space; and, indeed, the successive improve ments in the means for discerning the counties worlds that surround us have even yet bare! enabled us to possess the faintest idea of th infinity of Providence. When astronomers tel us that stars are visible, by means of instru A-! .iti liliyi iTifi