Remarks on the treatment of inflammation, with special reference to pneumonia.

  • Lawson, L. M. (Leonidas Merion), 1812-1864.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the treatment of inflammation, with special reference to pneumonia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    \S OLuMQYi* \*/Jj, -4b, J OF I The history of medicine affords ample evidence that the opinions of physicians, in past ages, were subject to numerous and extensive changes, constituting complete revolutions. The want of a scientific basis enabled the bold or ingenious innovator to supplant the received opinions of the day, and to substitute a new for an old error. But these revolutions are of ancient date. Modern medicine admits of improvement, but not-revo- lutionary changes. In the present, or scientific age, we distinguish between isolated facts, and a connected series of events. The former are accidental and often deceptive; the latter, duly classified and arranged, embrace the entire series of facts and events bearing on the subject, and therefore con- stitute a science. The shepherd of Melampus could prescribe steel and wine for impotence, or hellebore for phrenzy, without any scientific know- ledge of the nature of the disease, or the action of the remedies. And even Hippocrates, by his remarkable powers of observation, was often capable of forming an accurate prognosis, while he possessed but little knowledge of anatomical structures or pathological changes. In the revolutionary ages, ill-observed facts and crude generalizations too often served as the bases of imposing systems, which reigned supreme until supplanted by others, more specious, but equally false. Thus, the Empirics subverted the doctrines of the Dogmatists, while the Methodists intervened and overturned the theories of their predecessors. And even in comparatively modern times we find the Mathematical school subverting the Chemical, and the Yitalists superseding the Humoralists. In these speculative systems, a single misinterpreted fact may occupy the place of a science; while obscure technicalities and bold asseverations, are mistaken for rational explanations. The elixir vitas of Paracelsus, and the antidote of Mithriclates, were as probable as the aurum potabile of Bacon, or the similia similibus curantur of Hahnemann ; and the Androides of Albertus Magnus was as nearly a scientific revelation as the archaeus of Van Helmont or the anima of Stahl. While the cell-evolution of Bennett, although in- trinsically true, may, by ingenious misinterpretation, like the debility of Brown, and the spasm of Cullen, become the basis,of an erroneous system. /