| Description Of Item | The volume consists of the essay in a fair hand with no amendments. There is an inscription on the front inside cover 'John Henryson, London, 18th March 1824'. He may have been the one to copy out the essay. There is also a bookplate inscribed 'Ex Libris Henryson Caird'.
John Abernethy (1764-1831) was a London surgeon who worked at St Bartholomew's Hospital, having been appointed there in 1787. In his Hunterian oration of 1819 Abernethy maintained that the distinction that had evolved between physic and surgery was largely arbitrary. In particular he believed that the distinction between 'local' and 'constitutional' diseases, upon which the division of labour between physician and surgeon was predicated, was misleading. In his 'Essay on the constitutional origin, and treatment of disease' he wrote: 'My observations have led me to believe that most local diseases are preceded by general indisposition, of which the disordered state of the digestive organs is an evidence, and may have been a cause'. A close attention to the workings of the digestive system was consequently 'indispensably necessary, even in the common practice of the surgeon'. |