Duties and qualifications of physicians, an introductory lecture / by John Ware.

  • Ware John, 1795-1864.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Duties and qualifications of physicians, an introductory lecture / by John Ware. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    the first principles of medicine, and especially of medical evidence, are a large proportion, I do not know but I may say, are all men out of the profession, even the most intelligent and learned. A celebrated writer on Education has remarked in substance, that all men are competent judges of the character of a physician, because any body can tell whether his patients lived or died. There is a great want of judgment in this remark. A Phy- sician himself, if he observe with the caution of a philosopher, may pass many years of careful observation without being able to determine with regard to the success of his practice in any one disease or with any one remedy. Nothing is more difficult, than to form such an estimate either concerning ourselves or others. But it were idle to exhibit the absurdity of the remark. When men form their opinion of a physician's charac- ter, they derive their materials from two sources. First, they judge of his capacity and attainments in medicine, by their observation of his capacity and attainments in other things. If they find a man exhibiting good sense and sufficient informa- tion on subjects with which they are acquainted, and observe him at the same time to be devoted to the business of his calling, they conclude very reasonably that he will employ the same qualities there; and they accordingly give him their confi-