On the difficulty of estimating the therapeutical value of medicinal agents : being the address delivered to the Harveian Society at their annual meeting on the 13th April 1857 / by Archibald Inglis.

Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the difficulty of estimating the therapeutical value of medicinal agents : being the address delivered to the Harveian Society at their annual meeting on the 13th April 1857 / by Archibald Inglis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    logical fact, but as having made a mighty advance in releasing physiological inquiry from those trammels by which its cultivators had felt themselves tied down to explain observed phenomena only in accordance with preconceived and generally visionary theories. In the present day, nothing short of a rigid adherence to the in- ductive method of inquiry satisfies us as to the correctness of any doctrine in physiology, or in most of the other branches of medical knowledge; but, within the period of time during which so much has been done for the advancement of its more scientific depart- ments, if we turn to the most practically important of all, namely, the treatment of disease, we find that theory has succeeded theory in rapid succession, and that the ranks of the profession have often been divided against each other in support of the most opposite views. At one time we find that not only individual ailments, but whole classes of diseases, have been treated on the most opposite principles, and yet success claimed by the advocates of each; at another, theories of therapeutical action resting on the insecure basis of a hasty generalization, instead of that of sober induction, have obtained unbounded sway; nor, even in the most recent times, do we need to look far for instances of such theories being grounded even on gratuitous assumption, and yet moulded into such a plausible form, as to find an acceptance, not alone confined to persons uncon- nected with the profession, and therefore not supposed to be quali- fied to exercise much discrimination in such matters, nor yet to that section of those engaged in its practice who have been least favoured in respect of education, or ability to form a sound judgment on what falls under their observation, but extending to individuals possessed of no small share of natural talents, and enjoying ample opportuni- ties of improving them in the field of medical practice. Yet, if we compare medicine as an art with those branches of human industry or human occupation in which, in the present day, practical skill under the guidance of scientific knowledge has achieved so many triumphs, we cannot feel otherwise than assured, even on a super- ficial examination, that, in order either to establish fixed principles for the treatment of disease, or to extend our knowledge of the application of individual medicines, or classes of medicines, to the cure of particular maladies, the same methods of investigation must be followed which have been successful in other departments. If we select, as an example upon which such a comparison may be founded, the art of navigation, we see that the extension and correction of our knowledge of astronomical and of meteoi'ological phenomena—the continually increasing accumulation of facts and observations connected with geography and hydrography—the study of the laws of terrestrial magnetism—the multiplication and im- provement of instruments, by means of which the knowledge ac- quired in these sciences can be applied to practical purposes—above all, the introduction of a new propelling power, of great intensity, yet easily controlled and regulated, have given to the operations of