Introductory lecture delivered at the commencement of the fourth session of the Medical College of South Carolina, November 1827 / by Samuel Henry Dickson.

  • Dickson, Samuel Henry, 1798-1872.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture delivered at the commencement of the fourth session of the Medical College of South Carolina, November 1827 / by Samuel Henry Dickson. 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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    daily within their personal knowledge. An individual it- suffering in some particular mode constituting a given form of disease ; he is relieved by the application of a particular remedy. A second and third being similarly affected, are in the same manner, and by the same means, restored. A fourth being thus attacked, is so unfortunate as by some con- tingency to be destitute of the power of making the remedial application, and dies—or recovers after protracted suffer- ing. We thus attain a confidence in the powers of medicine, and to a rational man this confidence would seem to be well founded. But our sneering philosophers find occcasional ex- ceptions to the progress of circumstances above detailed. They do not fail to notice that some who make use of the remedy are still destroyed by the disease, or continue to en- dure unalleviated evils ; and that some attacked in the same way, acquire health and comfoitbythe unassisted exercise of patience. Fixing thus their attention upon the exceptions, they lose sight of the general rule, and arrive suddenly at the conclusion that medicine is inert and inutile. Or as some have done, perceiving that the effects of medicines are in certain instances injurious to human health, and even de- structive to life, they rashly consider them dangerous, unma- nageable and productive only of evil in their application. These opposite and inconsistent opinions can easily be proved to be alike untenable. With regard to the first, we believe it would not be difficult to convince Pyrrho him- self, or Montaigne, of the efficacy of bleeding in pleurisy, or of opium in a fit of colic. In strong cases like these the whole world has with one consent agreed to regard regular consequence as proof of the relation of effect to cause, and would infer with the prescriber and the sufferer, post hoc, propter hoc. To add to the number of such cases clearly made out, nothing is necessary but attention and observation. But let me here remark in passing that to make good the al- leged connexion between the administration of the remedy, and the cure of the disease, the coincidence must have been noticed repeatedly and under some variety of circumstances;