A short inquiry into the capillary circulation of the blood : with a comparative view of the more intimate nature of inflammation, and an introductory essay / By James Black.

  • Black, James
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A short inquiry into the capillary circulation of the blood : with a comparative view of the more intimate nature of inflammation, and an introductory essay / By James Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    dious and speculative mind, from advancing, since hw time, any thing like the semblance even of a rational principle; being afraid, lest a fair theoretical deduction from fact and experiment, may acquire the odious name of a hypothesis, and themselves be designated the dan- gerous students of fancy and speculation. Abhorring the wide sea of theory, many have betaken themselves to the rigid province of experience, trusting that they can never be captivated or seduced beyond the reach of their senses, or inveigled in the ingenioas cobwebs of proximate or remote causation. In shunning the Scylla of theory, however, we are apt to fall upon the Charybdis of empiricism, where facts and observations, though multiplied and interesting, yet stand so dis- jointed and insulated in the midst of proximity; that, if not surveyed by the faculty of generalization, appear like, as the objects of the natural eye would do, if vision were deprived of the power of perspec- tive arrangement. The observing and the mental regis- tering of a fact is one thing, the applying it to a use- ful or ingenious purpose is another. The one is the passive reception of a thing extrinsic to us, the other includes an active process of the understanding ; and to this more noble faculty, we are indebted for almost every thing in the scientific Arts, and for many signal improvements in Medicine. The application of even cold and heat to the body, in states of disorder and in health, is remedially regulated by a knowledge of the theory of its action on the blood and li^•ing fibre ; and
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