Pathological researches : Essay I : On malformations of the human heart : illustrated by numerous cases, and five plates, containing fourteen figures : and preceded by some observations on the method of improving the diagnostic part of medicine / by J.R. Farre, M.D.

  • Farre, J. R. (John Richard), 1775-1862.
Date:
1814
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pathological researches : Essay I : On malformations of the human heart : illustrated by numerous cases, and five plates, containing fourteen figures : and preceded by some observations on the method of improving the diagnostic part of medicine / by J.R. Farre, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    has well said, that probable evidence is essentially dis- tinguished from demonstrative, by this, that it admits of degrees, and of all varieties of them, from the highest moral certainty, to the lowest presumption. The presumptive evidence, on which Physicians are obliged to judge and to act, is, in many cases of internal disease, exceedingly small. Aware of the dangerous consequences of an error in judg- ment, they earnestly endeavour, by selecting diagnostic signs, to convert the low presumptions, of which I have spoken, into higher. In what manner this great end of their labour may be best accomplished, is one of the most important inquiries that can engage their attention. Every mode in which medicine can be studied, has its particular advantages; and in an inquiry which so essentially affects the comfort and happiness of mankind, our duty unquestionably is, to avail ourselves of every light which can lead us to the truth as it is in nature. We cannot commend, although we do not despise popular medicine. The wants of man, and his impatience to remove them, have always engrossed his atten- tion ; and he is instinctively led to regard, in the first place, those which he feels to be most urgent. Thus the popular inquiry extends not beyond what will cure a particular pain, a cough, a purging, and the like. This method, im- perfect as it is, is not, in all cases, to be condemned, because the disease is sometimes so identified with the urgent symptom, that, by arresting the latter, the former is cured. It must be confessed too, that, by this mode of research, many valuable remedies have been added to the Materia Medica. But when medicine began to be studied as a science, the Physician perceived that, by merely attempting to suppress an urgent symptom, it often happened that he aggravated the disease. It was, probably, this difficulty which gave rise to the professional method of investigating disease, which we call Clinical medicine. Although its object is the same as the former, the method is far more rational, inasmuch as it regards not merely the symptom,