REVIEW ON THE STUDY OF SURGERY. 263 
an introductory address in a medical school, must be as appli- 
cable to those whose vocation is the alleviation of the sufferings 
of domesticated animals, as they are to those who purpose de- 
voting their lives to the relief of diseased man. Inspired with 
this conviction, we purpose communicating to our readers the 
substance of Mr. Erichsen’s address, with such reflections as its 
attentive study has suggested to us. 
After commenting on the inseparable relation between me- 
dicine and surgery, the learned Lecturer proceeds in the follow- 
ing terms, to the consideration of the causes that have imme- 
diately and directly tended to raise surgery to its present high 
position. 
“ The first great and direct cause of the advance of surgery 
of late years is, in my opinion, to be found in the rapid march 
of physiology, in its more general cultivation by the profession, 
and in the immediate application of the results of physiological 
investigations, and of the laws that have flowed from them in 
the science and practice of surgery. Indeed, physiology may 
be looked upon as the basis of all sound surgery, without which 
no rational pathology or practice can exist ; and it is only in 
proportion as we widen and strengthen this basis, that a durable 
superstructure can be raised. 
“ Tt may almost appear superfluous to argue, and it may 
sound very like a truism to state, that a knowledge of those 
actions that constitute disease, or that are necessary for the 
repair of injury, can only correctly be entertained by those who 
are acquainted with the acts of the system in a healthy state ; 
that the only way in which pathological signs can be interpreted 
is by a knowledge of physiological ones; that, as disease is 
merely an aberration of the functions of a part or of the system 
from health, a proper appreciation of the nature and extent of 
this departure from a normal standard cannot be formed except 
by those who are previously acquainted with the operations of 
the economy in health, and with the mutual dependence on and 
relation to one or other of those processes that are necessary to 
its maintenance. A correct and enlightened view of the living 
organism, as afforded by a comprehensive acquaintance with 
physiology, teaches the surgeon to appreciate at a glance that 
concatenation and sequence of changes that are the result of a 
diseased action, and to distinguish those disturbances that have 
resulted from the progress of disease, and that are consequently 
secondary, from those that constitute the primary and essential 
elements of the morbid condition. But it is not only in this 
