Introductory address, delivered at the opening of the session of the Medical College of Georgia : on the second Monday of November, 1838 / by Joseph A. Eve.

  • Eve, Joseph A. (Joseph Adams), 1805-1886.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory address, delivered at the opening of the session of the Medical College of Georgia : on the second Monday of November, 1838 / by Joseph A. Eve. 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] had shed ovei the other sciences began to extend its salutary rays over medicine and dispel the clouds of ignorance and error, that had so long enshrouded it. Before this time, the most extrava- gant notions and wildest hypotheses were prevalent. Instead of building theories on the impregnable basis of established facts, the most absurd doctrines were advanced, and facts then sought and distorted for their support. The only true source of knowl- edge, nature herself, was seldom consulted: Most of the ridiculous opinions that were admitted into medicine and dignified with the appellation of doctrines, were founded in analogies derived from the principles of other sciences, or in total ignorance of all sci- ence, and were nothing more than the reveries of distempered imaginations. But as soon as the true principles of philosophy were applied to the cultivation of medicine, as soon as physi- cians began to seek truth by the only correct and legitimate methods, that is, by observation, experiment and inductive rea- soning, a new era commenced in our science; demonstration took the place of hypothesis, experience of speculation, and the systems that had only served with ignis fatuus' light to bewilder and mislead, soon vanished like the illusive phantoms of a dream. It is to the principles of the inductive philosophy that we are indebted for all that is valuable in medicine, it is to the appli- cation of these principles to the investigation of medical subjects, that we owe the great improvements made in the present cen- tury—the elevated state to which medicine has already attained ; and it is these principles that will advance it to the highest state of perfection of which it is susceptible. Lord Bacon was the author of this philosophy: in his great work entitled Novum Organon Scientiarum, he taught the only correct method of conducting scientific enquiry—he laid down those rational principles of philosophizing which have led the way to all those sublime discoveries and valuable improve-