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C U L L E N. 



GuUen. chains which he had successively occupied, with so much 

 T"^"" honour to himself and advantage to the students, he also 

 long gave regular courses of what are called Clinical 

 Lectures, alternating with the other professors of the 

 medical faculty. These are delivered on the actual cases 

 of patients attended by the clinical professor of the 

 season, accompanied by the pupils, in wards of the 

 Royal Infirmary set apart for this purpose : an institu- 

 tion of most admirable utility, by which the medical 

 students are initiated into all the minutiae of real prac- 

 tice, and habituated to reason judiciously on the nature, 

 symptoms, and diagnostics of diseases, and on the qua- 

 lities, operation, and effects of remedies employed for cu- 

 ring them; instead of blindly following empyrical modes 

 of prescription, merely because such and such nostrums 

 have been recommended for such and such diseases. 



As a philosopher and as a lecturer on various branches 

 of medical science, the mind of Dr Cullen was not so 

 much occupied in minutely examining the separate 

 parts of the subjects on which his attentions were en- 

 gaged, as in tracing the various relations, connexions, 

 and dependencies, by which they constitute individual 

 portions of one harmonious whole ; and his singular 

 talent for arranging, in lucid order, the numerous sub- 

 jects on which he treated, joined to the easy, perspicu- 

 ous, and flowing language in which he communicated 

 his ideas, particularly distinguished him as a public 

 lecturer. This faculty, however, could not, by itself, 

 have merited the high applause which he so justly ob- 

 tained. An accurate and extensive acquaintance with 

 facts was necessary to give it its full exercise. His 

 whole life, accordingly, was industriously and almost 

 uninterruptedly employed in the collection of facts, by 

 reading, by conversation, and by diligent observation 

 in the course of discharging his professional duties, 

 both public and private. These he marked with uncom- 

 mon keenness of perception, as they occurred, without 

 stopping at the time to record, or even to examine them 

 in their several bearings ; but he stored them up in his 

 memory, for being afterwards brought forwards as oc- 

 casion might require, to be then sifted, examined, and 

 compared, in all their relations and connections, and 

 applied as proofs and illustrations of the subjects-to 

 which they severally had reference. 



All his prelections were delivered extempore, with- 

 out having been previously committed to writing, and 

 were only assisted by a few short notes or heads of dis- 

 course, merely to preserve the accustomed order of his 

 general arrangement. This free and unconstrained man- 

 ner of enunciation, gave to his lectures an appearance 

 of ease, vivacity, and force, that is rarely found in 

 academical discourses; so that they were never precise- 

 ly the same, even upon the same subjects, in different 

 seasons, but always presented something novel, at least 

 in their language and illustrations. His mode of de- 

 livery was eloquent and energetic, and at the same time 

 easy, flowing, and natural, on which account his lec- 

 tures never failed to captivate his hearers, and command" 

 their unremitting attention. Even such of them as were 

 unable to follow him in those profound views which he 

 frequently presented, or could not fully comprehend 

 the apt allusions to collateral subjects, at which he often 

 hinted only as it were in passing, were yet unavoidably 

 warmed in some measure by the vivacity of his manner. 

 Those of his pupils, on the other hand, who were able 

 * to keep pace with him in his rapid career, found every 

 faculty of their minds roused to action by the extensive 

 views which he opened up to them, and were excited 



to such ardour of admiration and of study, as seemed Cullen. 

 incomprehensible to mere unconcerned spectators. ""T""" 



His influence upon young minds was much aug- 

 mented by the captivating novelty of his speculative or 

 theoretic opinions, and by the freedom with which he 

 animadverted upon the medical systems that Avere chief- 

 ly in vogue at the commencement of his academical ca- 

 reer, and which certainly afforded legitimate points of 

 attack. At that period, the medical school of Edin- 

 burgh, closely following that of Leyden, was fast bound 

 in the trammels of the Boerhaavian humoral pathology, 

 which attempted to explain the nature of diseases, and 

 to found the rationale of their cure upon a suppositi- 

 tious leutor viscidity and acrimony of the fluids. Even 

 in his first clinical lectures, before he became professor 

 of the institutes of medicine, Dr Cullen bent the main 

 strength of his pathological arguments to combat this 

 doctrine. He succeeded in his attempt, having soon 

 shaken its credit, and at last most completely overturn- 

 ed it. It is not meant to give any view, in this place, 

 of the doctrine which he then endeavoured to substitute 

 in the place of the one that he had exploded, and the 

 establishment of which he afterwards effected, but it 

 may be noticed, very generally, that he adopted and 

 expanded the pathological opinions already advanced 

 by Hoffman ; according to which, the nature of disease 

 was more rationally explained, by considering the errors 

 induced, by their remote, occasional, and proximate 

 causes, upon the actions of the living solids or vital 

 motions, than by any supposeable vitiated condition of 

 the fluids or humours, of which there is no evidence 

 from fact and observation. Ex vitio motuum microcos- ■_ 

 micorum in solidis, potius quam ex varus affectionibus. 

 vitiosorum humorum. 



It cannot be asserted, however, that the doctrine of; 

 Spasm and Atony was much better founded in reason 

 and observation than that of Leutor Viscidity and Acrimo- 

 ny, which it so completely superseded. But Dr Cullen 

 certainly succeeded in setting free the minds of the stu- 

 dents from the shackles of long established and uncon- 

 trolled authority, always injurious to the advancement 

 of science, and taught them to think for themselves, 

 by comparing reasonings and inductions with facts and 

 observation. He thus introduced new and extensive 

 views and speculations among the students, which, if- 

 not always satisfactory, were always ingenious, and 

 afforded them excellent topics for discussion in their 

 various societies. At an advanced period of Dr Cullen's. 

 life, such was the enthusiasm excited among the stu- 

 dents on certain points of controversy arising out of his. 

 hypothesis, contrasted with another set up in opposition 

 to it by a private lecturer, that several duels were fought- 

 in consequence ; and it has been alleged, that Dr Cul-. 

 len began at length to feel some of that jealousy to- 

 wards a rival innovator, which he himself had inspired 

 at the commencement of his own career. But it would 

 extend our sketch to a most inconvenient length to at- 

 tempt any elucidation of this medical controversy,. 

 Suffice it to say, that the Brunonian doctrine was in a 

 great measure a modification of the Cullenian Spasm and 

 Atony, disguised under new terms, and arranging all. 

 diseases under the heads of Sthenic and Asthenic. Seer 

 the Life of Brown in this Work. 



While the uncommon popularity which Dr Cullen 

 enjoyed was chiefly owing to his great merit as a teacher, 

 it was also much forwarded by the laudable pains he 

 took to ingratiate himself with his pupils. He was 

 cordially attentive to all their interests, invited them 



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