INSTITUTIONS OF MEDICINE. 



I. Medicine is the art of preventing and of curing diseases. 

 " The common language is that, 'Medicine is the art of preserv- 

 ing health and of curing diseases ;' but I have said ' the art of 

 preventing diseases ;' for although I do not deny that the pre- 

 serving of health is the object of a physician^ care, yet I 

 maintain that there is truly no other means of preserving health 

 but what consists in preventing diseases. Every other idea is 

 false, and has led to a superfluous, very often a dangerous 

 practice. I say, that health being properly understood, we 

 cannot add to it, nor increase its powers. There is never room 

 for our art, but when there is some defect in the constitution 

 some bias and tendency towards disease ; and it is only by pre- 

 venting this tendency, by correcting these defects, that is, by 

 preventing disease, that we preserve health. 



" For a long time past, the teaching of physic has been di- 

 vided into the Institutions and the Practice. What we call the 

 Practice, is the art applied to particular diseases and persons. 

 But the most part of physicians have been of opinion that" 



II. Before considering the application of this art to particu- 

 lar diseases, certain general doctrines are necessary to be pre- 

 mised, which are called THE INSTITUTIONS OF MEDICINE. 



III. The Institutions of Medicine are divided into three 

 parts : 



The first treats of life and health. 



The second delivers the general doctrine of diseases. 



The third delivers the general doctrine concerning the means 

 of preventing and curing diseases. 



" The first discovers to us the mechanism of the human 

 body ; the second treats of the manner in which that same 



