Anatomical, pathological and therapeutic researches on the yellow fever of Gibraltar of 1828 / by P. Ch. A. Louis, from observations taken by himself and M. Trousseau as members of the French Commission at Gibraltar ; translated from the manuscript by G.C. Shattuck.

  • Louis, P. C. A. (Pierre Charles Alexandre), 1787-1872.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anatomical, pathological and therapeutic researches on the yellow fever of Gibraltar of 1828 / by P. Ch. A. Louis, from observations taken by himself and M. Trousseau as members of the French Commission at Gibraltar ; translated from the manuscript by G.C. Shattuck. 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.)

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    depends on inflammation of the small intestine, does he tell us what exists, what he has observed, or only what he has imagined ? And do we not find similar reasoning, propositions of the same kind, in a great part of the numerous works which have been pub- lished within the last few years ? Our author, then, is remarkable as a laborious and careful observer; he insists on the importance and difficulty of observation, as no one before him has done, must he not, and with the same propriety, be considered a strict and conscientious reasoner ? That intense love of truth which directs his labors at the bedside and in the autopsy room, goes with him when he sits down to analyse facts, and thus to deduce general laws. The memory is uncertain and treacherous, unable to cope with numerous details, he never depends on it. The imagination is active and ready to say what may be, from his analysis there can result only what is. His conclu- sions, laws, are the expression of facts. Thus he gives us five cases of yellow fever in which no appreciable alteration of the mucous membrane of the stomach was found, and then says that the yellow fever of Gibraltar of 1828, is not a gastritis. Can the truth of this conclusion be questioned now or at any subsequent period ? Can it ever be falsified ? Some have been disposed to maintain that the ob-