From observations like these we can obtain certain principles from which
we can argue deductively to facts of a like nature, but the process is
limited, and we are suspicious of all reasoning in that direction applied
to the processes of healthy and diseased life. We are continually
appealing to special facts. We are willing to give Liebig's artificial
milk when we cannot do better, but we watch the child anxiously whose
wet-nurse is a chemist's pipkin. A pair of substantial mammary glands
has the advantage over the two hemispheres of the most learned
Professor's brain, in the art of compounding a nutritious fluid for
infants.
The bedside is always the true centre of medical teaching. Certain
branches must be taught in the lecture-room, and will necessarily involve
a good deal that is not directly useful to the future practitioner. But
the over ambitious and active student must not be led away by the
seduction of knowledge for its own sake from his principal pursuit. The
humble beginner, who is alarmed at the vast fields of knowledge opened to
him, may be encouraged by the assurance that with a very slender
provision of science, in distinction from practical skill, he may be a
useful and acceptable member of the profession to which the health of the
community is intrusted.
To those who are not to engage in practice, the various pursuits of
science hardly require to be commended.
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