Annual address delivered before the Medical Society of the State of New York : February 6, 1839 / by Laurens Hull.

  • Hull, Laurens, 1779-1865.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual address delivered before the Medical Society of the State of New York : February 6, 1839 / by Laurens Hull. 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.)

    8/14
    table, might have its apology, although a difference, in the circumstances of the patients could not fail to render it a very dangerous remedy; but to insist upon one cause of disease, and therefore only one remedy, is to insult the simplest measure of understanding—for in sober truth the exhibition of medicines is not directed to the causes of disease so much as to disease itself, which is a conse- quence. Thus for what do physicians prescribe when treating the whole class of fevers including small pox, scarlet fever and, local inflammations ! Can it be the causes ? in some this is contagion : in others marsh -miasmata : in some epidemic influence which we cannot comprehend with all the aids of the light of science, and in others, exposures to mere variations of temperature; the proposition therefore is an absurdity. But while one class of medical impostors take advantage of the simplicity of the world, and care not by what means they succeed, provided only that they are successful; there are others who seem to reason, although the foundations of all their arguments lie too deep to be fathomed by ordinary minds. They take for granted certain positions which are utterly destitute of proof, and impossible to prove, and build a Babel of incongruous materials till all the language of common sense is totally confounded. Such for instance is the lately imported doctrine of homoeopathy, first known in this country, that is if ever known, (which, by the way I do not believe) about fifteen years ago. Its novel- ty and the apparent method in this fanciful doctrine first gave it some celebrity, arising merely from curiosity; and the utter impossibility of making it intelligible, is perhaps with many visionary men its best recommendation. It depends for its profitable success however more upon the fact that deferred hope maketh the heart sick than upon any other cause—persons who have been long sick, and hopelessly diseased, and such as, although they may want a physician, have no need of him, are for the most part the patients.