METHOD OF STUDY. 429 



His title of Dolores may be taken as an example of this ; and 

 from which it may be readily perceived how far such treatises 

 can be really useful. 



In establishing a proper Pathology, there is nothing that has 

 been of more service than the dissection of morbid bodies. Mr. 

 Lieutaud has been much and most commendably employed in 

 this way, and in this Synopsis he has endeavoured to communi- 

 cate his knowledge on the subject ; but, in my humble opinion, 

 he has seldom done it in a manner that can be useful. In the 

 same way that he has delivered the symptoms of diseases with- 

 out any instructive arrangement; so, on the subject of the appear- 

 ances after death, he has mentioned every morbid appearance 

 that had ever been observed after the disease of which he is then 

 treating : But these appearances are strangely huddled together, 

 without any notice taken of those which belong to one set of 

 symptoms or to another ; and, with regard to the whole, with- 

 out any attempt to distinguish between the causes of diseases 

 and the causes of death ; although the want of such distinction 

 is the well-known ground of fallacy upon this subject. I take, 

 for an example, the appearances mentioned as having been ob- 

 served after dropsy. Here morbid appearances, found in every 

 part of the body, in every cavity of it, and in every viscus con- 

 tained in these cavities, are enumerated ; but which of these 

 morbid states are more frequent or more rare, and which had 

 been more particularly connected with the different causes, or 

 with the different state of symptoms previously recited, we are 

 not informed, nor has he enabled us to discover. In short, the 

 dissection of morbid bodies has been, and may be, highly use- 

 ful ; but in order to be so, it must be under a different manage- 

 ment from what we find, either in M. Lieutaud^s synopsis, or 

 even in the Historia anatomico-medica. 



I cannot dismiss this subject without remarking, that the dis- 

 section of morbid bodies is chiefly valuable upon account of its 

 leading us to discover the proximate causes of diseases : And 

 the great and valuable work of the illustrious Morgagni, is pro- 

 perly intituled de sedibus et causis. It may well seem sur- 

 prising, then, that Lieutaud should find the whole of proximate 

 causes atra caligine mersas ; and that he should never have 



