METHOD OF STUDY. 



to render the system perfect, it has however been especially 

 every new effort in system, that has excited a new industry in 

 completing and rendering more accurate the knowledge of parti- 

 culars. The system of Tournefort, for example, led to a more 

 exact observation of the form of flowers, that of Rivinus directed 

 to the number and disposition of the leaves ; a slight attempt in 

 Vaillant and Boerhaave led to the studying of stamina and pis- 

 tilla, and the system of Linnaeus has carried the same much 

 farther. In short, I think, every body acquainted with the 

 progress of Natural History must know, that the attempts in 

 system, and the study of particulars, have mutually promoted 

 and supported each other. 



It is certainly the same with regard to the study of diseases. 

 If a system, a Nosologia methodica, cannot just now be ren- 

 dered tolerably perfect, it is a certain proof that the particulars 

 of which it should be formed are at present neither accurate 

 nor complete, and it is equally probable that they cannot be 

 rendered so, till our attempts in system have been repeated, 

 and have made some farther progress. In proof of this, every 

 one that looks into the work of Sauvages, will find many imper- 

 fections in system which can only be corrected by farther obser- 

 vation. This, however, would hardly have been suggested but 

 by our perceiving the imperfection of system. Our attempts in 

 system therefore are necessary to enlarge our stock of facts. 



But let us in the next place consider how attempts in Nosolo- 

 gical system may be best conducted. 



It is, I think, now agreed, that the dissection of morbid bodies 

 is one of the best means of improving us in the distinction of 

 diseases. Sauvages indeed has rejected the employment of the 

 internal seat of diseases as a means of distinguishing them ; but 

 he has, in an hundred instances, tacitly employed it ; and under 

 the ambiguity that often occurs in external symptoms, it is evi- 

 dent that dissection, by showing the parts singly or jointly af- 

 fected, shows the real and steady changes in the system, upon 

 which the external symptoms depend, and therefore must lead 

 to the proper limiting of genera and species ; and if in no other 

 way, at least in this by leading us to observe more exactly the 

 external appearances connected with the internal observed from 

 dissection. This, therefore, like the attempts in system which 



