Some aspects of the mental discipline associated with the study of medicine : an address delivered to the Queen Margaret College Medical Club / by C.O. Hawthorne.

  • Hawthorne, C. O. (Charles Oliver), 1858-1949.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some aspects of the mental discipline associated with the study of medicine : an address delivered to the Queen Margaret College Medical Club / by C.O. Hawthorne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ago an address on the subject of prognosis was delivered to an important medical audience by a well-known physician. That address consisted for the most part of a statement of the facts of experi- ence in connection with various diseases, showing what actually has happened as regards complica- tions, death, and recovery in connection with each disease. In a leading medical journal the writer of an article, in dealing with the address, said that “ the orator does not sufficiently make clear the difference between rules, such as those he so admir- ably illustrated, and laws of nature in the strict sense.” And, further, the writer goes on to say that “if such rules are not to become a mischievous bondage, they must be continually compared with nature and recast in the light of new discoveries.” In my judgment these passages betray a confusion of thought which shows that the writer has been very imperfectly disciplined by his course of medical study. There is, I contend, no difference between what the writer calls mere rules, and laws of nature in the strict sense. All that we know about laws of nature is that they are rules. They are brief statements summing up the hitherto recorded ex- perience in the subjects with which they deal. “All men are mortal ” is a law of nature. It is based upon the fact that up to this date men have died with remarkable unanimity, and that from this unanimity there is a correspondingly strong proba-