A treatise on general pathology / by J. Henle ; translated from the German by Henry C. Preston.

  • Henle, Jacob, 1809-1885.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on general pathology / by J. Henle ; translated from the German by Henry C. Preston. 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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    ways or generally by determined external circumstances, and are removed by determined remedies. One system, by consciously abandoning all investigation into the first cause and the internal connexion of symptoms, describes the form of disease according to the external phenomena: its descriptions furnish only a substitute for sensible impressions: its names are not definitions, but only nomina propria, and are so much the more welcome the less a definite idea attaches to them : and should it need a word, for example, inflammation, it desig- nates thereby nothing but the association of redness, heat, tumefaction, and pain. The adherents of this system concern themselves much less about the modus operandi of the cause and of the remedy, than about the origin or first cause of the symptoms. On this account they make use of those remedies which have most frequently ex- hibited a favorable effect, and if they employ a new one, it is by way of experiment, in case the well-known remedies have, proved insufficient, or where a newer substance that promises much is discovered. Thus, the certainty of their different methods of cure, is not determined by internal arguments, but only by the number of medical observations : so all depends on collecting and using the most extended range of experiences. Clinical expe- rience is here the rule of treatment. This system or method is called the Empirical. The odious additional signification which adheres to it must be at once removed from the name Empiric, because the usage of language frequently alternates the words empiric and symp- tomatologist;—the former takes up the symptoms in their con- nexion ; the latter considers the same, but only individually, and thus combats them. The empiric knows that a symptom, as pain, can be relieved by means of opium ; but he also knows that opium does not, or at least not permanently, relieve, if the pain comes on simultaneously with redness and tumefaction. The symp- tomatologist knows only pain and opium. The second system, which has been called the Theoretical, Physiological, or Rational, endeavors to take up the symptoms in their dependence upon each other, and in their connexion with