He was much greater than his published
work would indicate, and, as is the case with many teachers of the first
rank, his greatest contributions were his pupils. No other teacher of
modern times has had such a following. Among his favorite pupils may
be mentioned Haller, the physiologist, and van Swieten and de Haen, the
founders of the Vienna school.
In Italy, too, there were men who caught the new spirit, and appreciated
the value of combining morbid anatomy with clinical medicine. Lancisi,
one of the early students of disease of the heart, left an excellent
monograph on the subject, and was the first to call special attention
to the association of syphilis with cardio-vascular disease. A younger
contemporary of his at Rome, Baglivi, was unceasing in his call to
the profession to return to Hippocratic methods, to stop reading
philosophical theories and to give up what he calls the "fatal itch" to
make systems.
The Leyden methods of instruction were carried far and wide throughout
Europe; into Edinburgh by John Rutherford, who began to teach at the
Royal Infirmary in 1747, and was followed by Whytt and by Cullen; into
England by William Saunders of Guy's Hospital. Unfortunately the
great majority of clinicians could not get away from the theoretical
conceptions of disease, and Cullen's theory of spasm and atony exercised
a profound influence on practice, particularly in this country, where it
had the warm advocacy of Benjamin Rush.
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