Medicine an art, and its truth to be attained. Being an address ... at the opening meeting of the "Library of the Exeter Dispensary", and the "Devon and Exeter Pathological Society" / [Thomas Shapter].

  • Shapter, Thomas
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine an art, and its truth to be attained. Being an address ... at the opening meeting of the "Library of the Exeter Dispensary", and the "Devon and Exeter Pathological Society" / [Thomas Shapter]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sufficient, has solely enunciated the occurrence of certain phe¬ nomena. These truly, if sufficiently numerous, might have per¬ mitted an induction, and even perhaps, through this medium, have authorized the assumption of a “ factfor induction first fairly developes and lays down the premiss, then logic deduces the conclusion. Were the truth of this position seriously borne in mind, how many of the mists that surround us would be dis¬ pelled ; how seldom should we hear quoted as fact the crudest hypothesis, and as truth the most naked “ non sequitur.” We will briefly illustrate these observations. It is often stated that a given disease is cured by the administration of a parti¬ cular medicine. Here four facts are implied : 1st, the fact of a disease; 2ndiy, the administration of a particular medicine; Srdly, the cure of the disease; and 4thly, upon these three facts are colligated another, viz., that the third is dependent on the second. For the sake of argument, we will allow the three first positions, and then we may examine as to the fourth, and we shall perchance find, that this so freqnent fact is resolvable into mere coincidence or hypothesis;—for example, when it has simply oc¬ curred that there was a disease, a medicine was given, and then a cure of the disease; now here the third is at once seen to be merely a concurrent term, and may be entirely independent of the second, therefore from such data it may be erroneous that the cure was dependent on the administration of the medicine. Hence it is not a fact, but merely a coincidence. Again ; the medicine has been given in many cases of disease, and in all re¬ covery ensued, but inasmuch as it is not shown that in other cases in which the medicine was not given, recovery did not en¬ sue, it cannot be stated, as a fact, that the medicine cured the disease. It certainly amounts, however, to more than a coinci¬ dence, it is an hypothesis. Again; cure ensued in all the cases of disease in which the medicine was given, and in no case in which it was not given. Here there is so conclusive a chain of circumstantial evidence, that it passes beyond hypothesis, and if worked out by induction assumes the position of a fact. Further to illustrate the position in medicine of Theory and c