An address delivered before the Suffolk District Medical Society, at its second anniversary meeting, Boston, March 28, 1851 / by Samuel Parkman.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An address delivered before the Suffolk District Medical Society, at its second anniversary meeting, Boston, March 28, 1851 / by Samuel Parkman. 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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    unknown principle, the vital force or power, but it is only legitimate to employ this when every other explanation has failed. It should, as the god in the ancient tragedy, not he admitted unless the crisis were worthy of such interference. It would seem, then, that in this direction the studies of medical science should be applied, viz. to the investigation of the changes which matter under- goes after its arrival at the human organization, and the investigation of these changes according to laws which w^e know to be established for the same matter elsewhere; endeavoring, as much as ])ossible, to explain the phenomena by these, and searching always first in this quarter for light to illumine a darkened path. By directing study to these points will the next great discoveries probably be made, and any great all-embracing laws be established. The ideal condition which medical science holds before itself is a condition of knowledge, when, in every disease, we shall know the manner in which the system departs from its normal condition, either by the reception of morbific infiuences from without, by the mal-appropriation of substances received, or by the failure to eliminate injurious principles which are the result either of the normal or abnormal de- composition of the tissues, or of substances foreign to the system received in divers manners. This ideal condition is of course beyond our reach, because its attainment requires the knowledge of more facts than humanity may hope to analyze and compre-