Locke and Sydenham / [Anon].

  • John Brown
Date:
[1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Locke and Sydenham / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    quence is, that, even in matters of practice, the young men are in possession of the field. Let it not be supposed that we despair of Medicine gaining the full benefit of the general advance in knowledge and useful¬ ness. Far from it. We believe there is more of exact diagnosis, of intelligent, effectual treatment of disease, that there are wider views of principles—directer, ampler methods of discovery, at this moment in Britain than at any former time; and we have no doubt that the augmentation is still proceeding, and will defy all calculation. But we are likewise of opinion, that the office of a physician, in the highest sense, will become fully more difficult than before, will require a greater compass and energy of mind, as working in a wider field, and using finer weapons; and that there never was more necessity for making every effort to strengthen and clarify the judgment and the senses by inward discipline, than when the importance and the multitude of the objects of which they must be cognizant, are so infinitely in¬ creased. The middle propositions must be attended to, and filled up as the particulars and the higher generalities crowd in. It would be out of place in a Journal such as this, and a paper so desultory as the present, to enter at large upon the subjects now hinted at—the education of a physician—the degree of cer¬ tainty in medicine—its progress and prospects, and the beneficial effects it may reasonably expect from the advance of the purer sciences. But we are not more firmly persuaded of any thing than of the importance of such an inquiry, made largely, liberally and strictly, by a man at once deep, truthful, knowing, and clear. How are we to secure for the art of discerning, curing and pre¬ venting disease, the maximum of good and the minimum of mis¬ chief, in availing ourselves of the newest discoveries in human knowledge? To any one wishing to look into this most inter¬ esting, and at the present time, vital question, we would recom¬ mend a paper by the accomplished President of the Edinburgh College of Physicians, admirable equally in substance and in form, entitled, On the Signification of Fact in Medicine, and on the hurtful effects of the incautious use of such modern sources of fact as the microscope, the stethoscope, chemical analysis, sta¬ tistics, &c.;” it may be found in No. 177 of the Edinburgh Me¬ dical and Surgical Journal. We merely give a sample or two, in which our readers will find in better expression much of what we have alreadv referred to. Medicine still is. and must con- tinue for ages to he an empirico-rationalism.^^ A sober thinker can hardly venture to look forward to such an advanced state of chemical rationalism as would be sufficient for pronouncing a prior% that sulphur would cure scabies., iodine goitre, citric acid the scurvy, or carbonate of iron neuralgia.^’’ “ Chemistry promises
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