Rational medicine, its position and prospects : an oration delivered before the members of the Hunterian Society, on the 15th February, 1860 / by Stephen H. Ward.

  • Ward, Stephen Henry, 1819-1880.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rational medicine, its position and prospects : an oration delivered before the members of the Hunterian Society, on the 15th February, 1860 / by Stephen H. Ward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Under the term medicine^ I embrace its different branches^ and the art as well as the science; and I call that ratipnal medicine which has its foundations laid in a recognition of Nature's resources in disease as well as in health; which feels that its object is science, not mystery; which, for its advancement, has recourse to philosophical appliances and methods of investigation; which acknowledges no means but such as are adequate to ends; which holds hypotheses upon uncertain tenure, ready to relinquish them as fresh compelling facts flow in j and which, eminently eclectic, avails itself of what is good in all systems, and is yet slave to none! A consideration of the position and prospects of rational medicine resolves itself into the causes aftecting such ; and these may be arranged under the two heads, philosophical and ethical. Able thinkers and workers have, of late years, been actively engaged in our own as in other departments of human knowledge, and it must be conceded by every impartial observer, that through new and improved instruments of investigation, as the stethoscope, the speculum, the microscope, and chemical agents, large results have accrued, and the scientific basis of medicine has been much enlarged and strengthened. Bearing in mind the inevitably subtle character of the phenomena of life as displayed in disease no less than in health, and the many modifying elements which must be taken into consideration before avc can arrive at even a proximate solution of any medical problem, we have, I think, reason to be proud of the progress which our science has made.