The touchstone of medical reform : in three letters, addressed to Sir Robert Harry Inglis, bart., M.P. / by Joseph Henry Green.

  • Green, Joseph Henry, 1791-1863.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The touchstone of medical reform : in three letters, addressed to Sir Robert Harry Inglis, bart., M.P. / by Joseph Henry Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    late with as little remorse, relying as they safely may on the old rule, that where hope and desire are in play, one lucky hit will be remembered where twenty failures are forgotten. “ Eadem est ratio fere omnis superstitionis ; homines advertunt eventus uhi implen- tur, ast uhi fallunt (licet multo frequentiusj, tamen negligunt et prcetereunt—Bacon Noy. Org. Aph. xlvi. The conflict of science and systematized ex- perience with quackery, of the liberal cultivator of science with the contraband trader in nostrums and stolen fragments of knowledge, is indeed a sacred war! Though I fear it would be hoping too san- guinely of human nature not to admit, that it will endure as long as physical or moral infirmity place men in those states which eminently favour the pre- dominance of the passions and the imagination over conscience, reason, and judgment. But, assuredly, if such be the sources of the success of fraudulent em- piricism they ought to excite a wholesome jealousy, an honourable solicitude in the legitimate candidate for the medical profession to stand aloof, at a far distance, from the very appearance of tampering with such unholy aidances. “ To act in the spirit of science where I can ; by the mere light of experience without scientific insight where I must; but with the uniform avoidance and contempt of quackery in all cases”—this is, or should be, the code of morals for every medical practitioner. And with these views I hold it as little less than in- disputable, that, as the legitimate claim of the pro-