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From this view of medicine, we readily perceive its great extent; we learn the principles on which it founded the division of it, into the Study of Physic, more properly speaking, and into Surgery.
The former is conversant about the cure of inward diseases, and such complaints as require the use of medicines. The latter principally regards external disorders, and those inward maladies which need the manual assistance of a dexterous operator to relieve them. We likewise understand the reason of so many distinct branches of medical study; the previous knowledge of which, both in the Physician and Surgeon, are requisite in order to qualify them for successful practice.
The necessity of discriminating between physic and surgery will more manifestly appear when we consider, that they are distinct in their nature, and that either of them is an art, sufficient of itself to engage the industry of one man to cultivate.
The various branches of knowledge which compose the science of medicine, are Anatomy, Materia Medica, Botany, Chymistry, the Theory of medicine, and the practice.
These will be fully known by defining them separately; by showing what weight they bear in the
