Medicine and surgery one inductive science, being an attempt to improve its study and practice, on a plan in closer alliance with inductive philosophy, and offering, as first fruits, the law of inflammation ... the whole being the introduction and first part of a system of surgery / By George Macilwain.

  • Macilwain, George, 1797-1882.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine and surgery one inductive science, being an attempt to improve its study and practice, on a plan in closer alliance with inductive philosophy, and offering, as first fruits, the law of inflammation ... the whole being the introduction and first part of a system of surgery / By George Macilwain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE. * BEFORE the reader peruses the following pages, I am desirous that he should have a general idea of the views and objects which have led to their publication. In common with many others of the profession, I have long been dissatisfied with the condition of the science, in the cultivation of which the greater part of my life has been employed. I have sensibly felt the humiliating conviction that medical science has not kept pace with other departments of knowledge, either as to its pro- gress or diffusion; and that, as a consequence of this, it is encum- bered by many circumstances which impede its progress, abridge its utility, and derogate from the rank of those who follow it as a profession. We can in no way explain these circumstances by any refer- ence, either to the paucity of our -facts (for of these we have abundance), or to any deficiency of industry, in at least a con- siderable number of the cultivators of medical science; but it is easy to perceive that there is a great difference in the manner which has characterized our investigations, when compared with that observable in the cultivation of the other sciences. In these, there has been a pervading observance of inductive reasoning, as taught us by Lord Bacon: in medical science, we ob- serve as pervading a violation of it. I speak generally ; I do not mean that it is always observed in the one case, nor always disre- garded in the other. When we connect with the foregoing the fact that there is, be- sides, a very demonstrable correspondence in the progress of every science, and the observance of inductive reasoning in its cultivation, it is impossible to be otherwise than anxious to enquire at least whether the slow progress of medical science may not be attributable to that general disregard or violation of rules of reasoning which have so materially assisted the progress of all others.