Anyone
who wishes to have a picture of the medical schools in Europe in the
first few years of the century, should read the account of the travels
of Joseph Frank of Vienna.(10) The description of Corvisart is of a
pioneer in clinical teaching whose method remains in vogue today
in France--the ward visit, followed by a systematic lecture in the
amphitheatre. There were still lectures on Hippocrates three times a
week, and bleeding was the principal plan of treatment: one morning
Frank saw thirty patients, out of one hundred and twelve, bled!
Corvisart was the strong clinician of his generation, and his accurate
studies on the heart were among the first that had concentrated
attention upon a special organ. To him, too, is due the reintroduction
of the art of percussion in internal disease discovered by Auenbrugger
in 1761.
(10) Joseph Frank: Reise nach Paris (etc.), Wien, 1804-05.
The man who gave the greatest impetus to the study of scientific
medicine at this time was Bichat, who pointed out that the pathological
changes in disease were not so much in organs as in tissues. His
studies laid the foundation of modern histology. He separated the
chief constituent elements of the body into various tissues possessing
definite physical and vital qualities.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266