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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    \ preceded him, and to be finally enlightened by their purified wisdom; and the exercise of his faculties in this existence may be only the preparation of the ground in which the tree of knowledge shall blos- som hereafter. The science of medicine, then, is incomplete, im- perfect, inexact, only as is every science which has relations with living beings. The metaphysician speculates upon the laws which govern the manifes- tations of mind, and labors to accumulate as many conditions as he can comprehend, using the study however only as a species of mental gymnastics to fit him for the understanding of himself The sci- ence of the moralist is alike inexact or incomplete; l)ut it is considered no reproach to its votary, that, with his present faculties, he may never hope to attain what he constantlv strives to reach. We do not abandon his precepts because there are occasional conflicts and doubts as regards duty, which are hon- estly settled in opposite ways by different persons. Because there is a supposed conflict between the “higher” and the “lower” law, we do not abandon all law. Thus medicine is imperfect; the laws of dis- ease can never be fully known, because of our igno- rance of the laws of health. But still we may bring together many important phenomena, and their study may enable us to prescribe rules, which, although imperfect, may be sufficient for our guidance, with the recognition always of the uncertain ground upon which we stand.