and Dr J. C. Gregory, who have added, in an appendix, such illustrations as explain the progress of medical science since it was originally published. We need hardly add that the most valuable edition of it, as a work of Dr Cullen's, is
that edited by Dr Thomson, who having access to Dr Cullen's manuscript notes,
submitted to the profession an improved edition of this work in the year 1827.
The system of medicine explained and advocated by Dr Cullen in his lectures
and in his work "The First Lines of the Practice of Physic" is raised on the
foundation which had previously been laid by Hoffman, who pointed out,
more clearly than any of his predecessors, the extensive and powerful influence of the nervous system, in producing and modifying the diseases to which the human body is liable. Although the study of pathology does not
appear to have been so zealously pursued at that period as it is at present, yet
Dr Cullen, in his course of clinical instruction, always dwelt on the importance
of inspecting the bodies of those who died under his treatment, and connecting
the post mortem morbid appearances with the symptoms that had been exhibited during life. In addressing a letter to Dr Balfour Russel, the author of the best work on the Plague published in this country, he observes, "you will not find it impossible to separate practice from theory altogether; and therefore if you have a mind to begin with the theory, I have no objection. I think a systematic study of the pathology and methodus medendi will be necessary previous to the practice, and you may always have in view a system of the whole of physic." But notwithstanding this, it must be admitted that Dr Cullen was too fond of theorising, and like all other philosophers who are anxious to frame a particular system, he often commenced establishing his superstructure before having accumulated a sufficient number of facts to give it a secure foundation. Hence the works of Bonetus, Morgagni, and Lieutaud contain more pathological knowledge than those published at a later date by Dr Cullen.
Dr Cullen, in discharging his duties as a professor, both in Glasgow and Edinburgh, took very great pains in the instruction of his students; perhaps he is entitled to the credit of having taken a deeper and more sincere interest in their progress than any professor with whose history we are acquainted. Dr James Anderson, who was his pupil and friend, bears the most unequivocal testimony to his zeal as a public teacher. For more than thirty years, says he, that the writer of this article has been honoured with his acquaintance, he has had access to know, that Dr Cullen was in general employed from five to six hours every day, in visiting his patients, and prescribing for those at a distance who consulted him in writing ; and that, during the session of the college, which, in Edinburgh, lasts from five to six months, he delivered two public lectures of an hour each, sometimes four lectures a day, during five days of the week; and towards the end of the session, that his students might lose no part of his course, he usually, for a month or six weeks together, delivered lectures six days every week; yet, during all that time, if you chanced to fall in with him in public or in private, you never perceived him either embarrassed or seemingly in a hurry; but at all times he was easy and cheerful and sociably inclined; and in a private party of whist, for sixpence a game, he could be as keenly engaged for an hour before supper, as if he had no other employment to mind, and would be as much interested in it, as if he had a thousand pounds depending on the game.[1] The professors of universities are too generally apt to hold their offices like sinecures, going lazily through the business of their duties, by reading five times a week, in an indifferent tone, a lecture of an hour's length, after which, retiring within the magic circle of their dignity, they are too often above condescending
- ↑ The Bee, or Literary Intelligencer, vol. i. p. 8.
