The collective investigation record / edited for the collective investigation committee of the British Medical Association by Professor Humphry and F.A. Mahomed.

  • Mahomed F. A.
Date:
1883-1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The collective investigation record / edited for the collective investigation committee of the British Medical Association by Professor Humphry and F.A. Mahomed. 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.

    23/530 (page 13)
    for the purpose of extending medical knowledge is an important duty in itself to all concerned, for however slowly, and at first im- perfectly, such a combination may operate, the smallest progress is a great gain to society and to our profession, and if favoured as it plainly claims to he by all the members of it, and helped by the efforts of our best minds, cannot but, in the course of time, lead on from what is now but dawn to daylight. As to the objection on the score of fitness, if this were urged as an argument against this movement, it would stand self-con- demned on every ground; for if the members of our profession are unfit to observe, they are largely unfit to practise. Probably not so much, as this is meant, when it is said that the working members of the profession cannot help us much, but rather that until the special workers in the sciences of physiology and pathology have made more advance, it would be useless for untrained practitioners to attempt anything novel. But we believe this to be one of the fallacies of the day, and one of the causes which retard the progress of practical medicine. Without in any degree depreciating the more recondite study of physiology and pathology, whilst indeed hailing with thankfulness the light such studies give us, and honouring those who in that be- half work for us, we may fairly maintain that we have been too indifferent to the value of the facts which, lie nearest to us in our daily work. The feeling that only experts in science can do anything, and that we must wait until they, from their centre, move us, or we shali not move successfully, is only partially true. To say that this Association is beginning at the wrong end, is to misapprehend how knowledge is gained. The history of medicine is in our favour. We do not wait to discuss the nature of sensation; or how it is that the peritoneum is painful in inflammation, before we give opium for its relief. Currie proved the use of cold effusion in fever more than half a century before physiologists began to suspect that there was a nerve-centre in the cord for controlling animal heat; and as yet they have not taught us specially how to utilise their discovery. We have long known the curative effects of quinine in ague, though physiologists have not yet determined the operation of the miasm-organisms which are present, and which may give rise to this disease. Laenncc