140 TRUTH, PATHOLOGY, AND PUBLIC, 



receptacle, to be packed with facts and fictions, 

 useful and otherwise ; or the horticultural plan, 

 which looks on it as a living plant, to be nursed to 

 a healthy and more mature condition, ere the time 

 for transplanting arrives, when it is to become 

 useful or ornamental by the exercise of the healthy 

 powers which have been educed. It is palpable 

 that in all professional education there is a large 

 mass of fact to be learned, but obvious also that 

 the facts will be of little use without the art of 

 handling them and turning them to account. More 

 especially is this the case in medicine. The facts 

 which are brought under the notice of medical 

 students are, as you have experienced, these : the 

 modes of preservation of health and treatment of 

 disease ; the laws of health and disease and the 

 actions of remedies, which form the immediate 

 basis of treatment ; the structure of the body, 

 without a knowledge of which its operations, 

 healthy and otherwise, cannot be known, and 

 without which you dare not use the knife ; the 

 chemical laws which govern both the body in its 

 operations and the remedies which you propose 

 to use ; and lastly, the characters of animals and 

 vegetables, that domain of life to which our life 

 belongs. I have placed foremost that which is 

 most prominent in the minds of most of you the 



