Medical botany : a course of lectures delivered at Sussex Hall, during 1850 / by A.I. Coffin.
- Coffin, A. I. (Albert Isaiah)
- Date:
- [1851?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Medical botany : a course of lectures delivered at Sussex Hall, during 1850 / by A.I. Coffin. 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.
29/244 (page 13)
![will shew you the right mode, and thus endeavour to give 3^ou that information which shall lead you to the right source^ having numerous instances con- stantly occurring to prove the uncertanity of the former. Medical men have had to guess their way all through their practice ; for their laws were not like those of mechanical science—certain and de- finite. Dr. Brown, author of the Brunonian system, says that he icasted more than twenty years of his life in learning, teaching, and scru- tinising medicine, and observes, farther, that it was only between the fifteenth and twentieth years of his studies, that, like a traveller in an un- known country, wandering in the gloom of night, after losing every trace of his road, a very obscure beam of light, like that of the first break of day, dawned upon him. Dr. Rush (and he may be considered the Hippocrates of America) said to his medical pupils— There are three causes why w^e cannot cure disease, namely :—Want of knowledge of that disease ; want of a remedy; and want of efficacy in the remedy when applied. What would you think of a watchmaker having painted in front of his shop:—There are three reasons why I cannot mend a watch : not knowing what's the matter with the watch; not acquainted with the means to remedy it; and having ]io faith in any means I might adopt.—-How much trade is that](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21046918_0029.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)