Facts establishing the efficacy of the opiate friction in spasmodic and febrile diseases. Also, outlines of an attempt to investigate the nature, causes, and method of cure, of hydrophobia and tetanus ... To which are added, cases and remarks / [Michael Ward].

  • Ward, Michael, active 1809.
Date:
[1809]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts establishing the efficacy of the opiate friction in spasmodic and febrile diseases. Also, outlines of an attempt to investigate the nature, causes, and method of cure, of hydrophobia and tetanus ... To which are added, cases and remarks / [Michael Ward]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “ As experience without theory will never make a physician, any more than any other art can be acquired, without an acquaintance with the rules on which it is founded; and as he that is guided merely by appearances, without being able to reason about their rpinutest differences, will never see an error lill it is past recovery ; it will be found by those who impartially examine this question, that true satisfaction is no more to be found in mere experience, than in mere hy- pothesis. If there be any thing of science in medicine, it is conducted by demonstration, because conversant with objects cognizable only by the evidence of sense; but without this, it is chance and confusion, and the enthusiast and empiric are upon an equal footing. Not that we can pretend to certainty in all instances of practice, because there are more data required for that, than the nature of things can admit of; but the theorist will come at more of those data than any other, and in every step he takes will be able to compute all the chances that are risqued on either side of a disputable case; whereas the empiric and experimenter are alto- gether in uncertainty, having no rules to make even observation itself of real use.” Pref. to the Ed. Pract. of Phys. Again, “ There are some modern prac- titioners wrho declaim against medical theory in general, not considering that to think is to theorize; and that no one can direct a method