Glossology, or, The additional means of diagnosis of disease to be derived from indications and appearances of the tongue : read before the Senior Physical Society of Guy's Hospital, 4th November, 1843 / by Benjamin Ridge.

  • Ridge, Benjamin.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Glossology, or, The additional means of diagnosis of disease to be derived from indications and appearances of the tongue : read before the Senior Physical Society of Guy's Hospital, 4th November, 1843 / by Benjamin Ridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    selves to examine the merits of the question, but use the weapons of their chief as they find them, and as they can ; and thus a vox populi is estabUshed, which time and habit strengthens till it is at last listened to, and believed in, as the oracle of God. A bold man may have power to turn the tide another way, and get his train of followers through the same means, as history will show. But what do these vacillations show ? Merely that present right of argument is temporary right of power. We not only see in each age that opinions change, but that they are always changing. The sound conclusions to be drawn from these facts are,—that truth to-day must be truth to-morrow^, and for ever; but where doctrines are founded, not in truth, but on the shifting quicksands of error, then opinion shifts and changes, and is unstable as shoals of sand, or as the winds. The doctrines of one man, or the doctrines of a generation of men, are but mere opinions, if they are not founded in truth. Students are apt to imagine that research is exhausted, and that everything is known that can be known—that the zeal and industry of man has fathomed everything. How clear appear the arguments of the professors; how sound their doctrines; how skilful their treatment! Yet no age is spared by the destroy inghand of Death, though so much wisdom and learning have been expended in the godlike act to save. The inspections how clear, after death; the disease, no human power could stop—under it no human being could live. Their first aim accomplished, and their diplomas framed and glazed, the weight of