A discourse addressed to the Kentucky State Medical Society at its annual meeting : held in Lebanon, April 18, 1859 / by Joshua B. Flint.

  • Flint, Joshua B. (Joshua Barker), 1801-1864.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A discourse addressed to the Kentucky State Medical Society at its annual meeting : held in Lebanon, April 18, 1859 / by Joshua B. Flint. 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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    [9] being, a subtile force, inherent in the very organization itself, whose office it is to protect vitality, in its very arcana—to cor- rect errors of function, and restore lesions of structure? So our accepted phraseology implies—so, in some sense our daily experience assures us, and so also, some of the most striking analogies of nature intimate. Some hundred years ago, astronomy offered a frightful proph- esy to the world from the observation of certain irregularities in the motions of the moon, which, presumed to be persistent, would inevitably, at some uncertain, but not very distant period of time, bring that planet into contact with the earth, and intro- duce the reign of chaos into the solar system. Our poetic brother Darwin celebrated the sublime disaster in some of his most effective lines, and Sir I. Newton went to his grave in the melancholy apprehension of this impending catastrophe, in the system whose laws he had done so much to unfold. It was left for his great compeer La Place to correct this mistake of his predecessors—to illustrate the efficiency of the vis medi- catrix, even among the stars, by demonstrating that this dreaded irregularity itself was hurrying our capricious satellite within the range of attractions and influences that would mod- ify its erratic propensities, cause it to resume its normal course, and wheel on, indefinitely, in its appointed orbit, without hazard to the safety or harmony of the system. How reasonable then, to infer, independent of the multiplied experience to which I shall presently refer, that in the microcosm of man, the all-Avise creator has introduced a like conservative principle, limited indeed, and qualified by the exigencies and necessities of a mortal and transient being. But far more conclusive than any analogical suggestions, are the familiar facts presented to those who are observant of disease, provided they will interpret them with a view to the point we are considering — so that we have no doubt of the operation of this conservative principle in the more trifling disor- ders and diseases of the body, which, let alone of art, never- theless are relieved by the restorative forces of nature; but we are too prone to distrust the ability of these forces to contend with the more serious and formidable of the disturbances of the system. Although our distrust of the good old dame docs not often degenerate into the positive insult inculcated