Letter to Worthington Hooker, M.D., of Norwich, in relation to so much of his book, entitled, "Physician and Patient", as has reference to homoeopathy / by F. Matthes.

  • Matthes, F. (Felix), 1809-
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to Worthington Hooker, M.D., of Norwich, in relation to so much of his book, entitled, "Physician and Patient", as has reference to homoeopathy / by F. Matthes. 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.)

    7/16
    ever changing shapes of empiricism ; and we are compelled to conjecture, that you trust mainly to a sort of mysterious tact or skill, innate in the man, and not required like other knowl- edge. You affirm, (p. 418,) So accustomed is he to make the requisite discrimination, that his efforts in positive medica- tion are well directed, and are almost sure to accomplish their object. I appeal to all the reflecting readers of your book, whether we are not driven to this assumption of a mysterious tact, since, in the following sentences, you have deprived the regular school of every support which it has derived hith- erto from an appearance of being based upon scientific princi- ples. You say, (p. 31,) The nature and mode of operation of the causes of many diseases are involved in mystery, and are subjects of discussion and dispute among medical men. Again, (p. 43,) If there be so much liability to error in a disease so simple and uniform as smallpox is, it is still greater in those complaints which are more complicated, from collateral and accidental influences and affections. Perhaps I cannot adduce a better example for our purpose than is to be found in scarlet fever. There is no disease, the history of whose treat- ment shows so strikingly the uncertainty of medical knowledge and experience as this does. The most opposite and various remedies and modes of treatment have been lauded as success- ful, in standard medical works, and in medical journals, and multitudes of certain cures have been proclaimed in the news- papers. What is praised by one is condemned by another; and it is the individual experience of every rational and candid practitioner, that a mode of treatment which at one time is attended with marked success at another is wholly unsuccess- ful. (Page 45,) I need not spend time to show how the same uncertainty must embarass us, to a greater or less degree, in our investigations of all other diseases. * (Page 49,) The recorded experience of the medical profession is therefore * Who does not here think of the manifold treatises upon cholera, which have emanated from the regulars.