An examination of a review, contained in the British and Foreign Medical Review, of the Medical and physiol. commentaries / by the author, Martyn Paine.

  • Paine, Martyn, 1794-1877.
Date:
1841
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An examination of a review, contained in the British and Foreign Medical Review, of the Medical and physiol. commentaries / by the author, Martyn Paine. 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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    cumstance, even that which seems the most known. This known circumstance is, as it were, the chain that unites together the truths we are in search of. It draws us nearer to the unknown, and enables us to see nature more nearly.' The Commentaries then remark, that this is our apology for any 'seeming prolixity, either here or elsewhere. [Comm. vol. i. pp. 492,531, 391, 267 ; vol. ii. p. 300.) It is clearly absurd to suppose that subjects of such magnitude as are examined in the Commentaries, where the arguments of so many profound writers were to be met, and where so many facts must be arrayed in opposition, could have been despatched with that brevity which might be most convenient for a Review that professes to survey the whole field of foreign and domestic medical literature. The author had been too much admonished by the fate of others, and was too respectful of others, to neglect the available means of sustaining his position ; and the very course which has been taken by the reviewer is ample proof that the author acted wisely. To illustrate the advantages of brevity, the reviewer institutes a comparison between Dr. Holland's '-Medical Notes and Reflections, and the Medical and Physiological Commentaries. Of the for- mer, it is said that the sketches are drawn by the hand of a mas- ter, though mere outlines ; and, in farther opposition, they are said to convey a greater number of clear ideas to a reader of or- dinary capacity than the most highly-wrought of Dr. Paine's fin- ished compositions. The latter contains a mass of materials, indeed, of great learning, &c. Now, in the first place, as already said, the author was writing not alone for readers of ordinary capacity, but for all sorts of capacities, and in view of a torrent of opposition which he well knew must be encountered. The reviewer has thus forced upon his author the necessity of involving Dr. Holland in this controversy; and if the reader will turn to the Commentaries, Vol. I. pp. 396, 543, he will find what coincidence of opinions with Dr. Holland suggested the commen- dation bestowed upon his work at the expense of the Commen- taries. The author of the latter will also subjoin in a note some of the leading doctrinal views of the gentleman with whom he is contrasted, that it may be readily seen what are the reviewer's opinions of just and vivid conceptions, power and learning, clear ideas, lucid views, and other criteria by which he would have the Commentaries tried. It is worth remarking, also, that, in respect to design^ there is not the most remote parallel between Dr. Holland's work and the Commentaries. The former pro- fesses nothing but to arrange what was already known or suppos-