Medical logic / by F. Oesterlen ; translated and edited by G. Whitley.

  • Oesterlen, F. (Friedrich), 1812-1877.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical logic / by F. Oesterlen ; translated and edited by G. Whitley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    69/458 (page 53)
    We are therefore led to the conclusion that, throughout nature, “ explanation,^^ in its ultimate signification, means nothing but a reference of certain phenomena and pi’ocesses to others, or the resolving the one into the other. The latter may therefore be designated as lying deeper and being more general in relation to the phenomena modified by, or referred to, them. We might therefore correctly call this whole pro- cess of investigation and explanation {i. e. the course pursued in attempting the elucidation of the causal connection of these phenomena, &c., according to the inductive process), the gene- ralization of a fact or incident. Thus, when we referred many cases or kinds of paralysis to pressure upon the brain (either from extravasation of blood, or from the presence of tumours within the cranium), and deduced them from this cause; and when we referred many acute diseases, which were regarded as so many forms of what was called “ idiopathic fever,” to inflam- mation in different tissues, we extended the application of both these conditions to a series of other phenomena and processes,—i. e. we generalized them. Another instance is afforded by what we now call “ erasesi. e. certain changes in the constitution of the blood, and in the conversion of tissue, &c.; for we now regard the most varied changes and derangements, both of organs and of functions, in the living body, as modified by those erases. We have not to inquire here how far all this is correct, i. e. is the result of demon- stration. It is sufficient for our purpose that of late certain phenomena and processes have been connected together, which were previously regarded as differing in character and standing widely apart the one from the other; and that we have dis- covered, or at least believe we have discovered, in all of them, the same condition and process to be determining and essen- tial. In like manner the physiologist has partly traced the phenomena connected with the functions of “ absorption” and “ secretion” to the physical processes of endosmose and exosmose. He has also traced the development of the most dissimilar tissues to the previous formation and fux’ther growth of cells. In the former case, he generalized the processes of endosmose and exosmose; in the latter, that of cell-formation. The same principle applies to the discovery of the chemist, that the bleaching effect of chlorine—i. e. the destruction of