Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Outlines of medical proof / by Thomas Mayo. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
11/50 (page 11)
![These considerations have brought before us an ele- ment of proof, on the choice of which much will depend in a process of inductive observation, namely, hypothesis. Let any one who desires to know how far the quality of the hypothesis or conjecture in which an investigation commences may determine its success, reflect on the confidence with which we now generahse the pathology of dropsy, our observations being guided by the experi- mental induction of Dutrochet, and then turn to the pathology of fever, as deduced from the indkect and direct debility of Brown. The hypothesis of CuUen was, perhaps, equally precarious with that of Brown, but his generalisations have a merit independent both of his hypothesis and his conclusions, that, namely, of a truthful enumeration of symptoms obtained from a wide compass of observations. Now it is in the struc- ture of the hypothesis, which may afterwards be made subservient to a series of observations, that we princi- pally recognise the value of experimental reasoning. Though we may not be able to apply an experimental induction immediately to our practice, we may build o]i it a pile of observations, from which we may command disease. In tliis respect we are greatly indebted to Dr. George Burrows for his experimental proof of the state of the cerebral circulation with reference to a pre- sumed plenum of that organ under certain conditions, which had been supposed to imply the absence of atmo- spheric pressure on the cranium. We are enabled to make an immense, though negative, use of these expe- riments in classifying cerebral disease. For we can now admit local plethora as an element in such a clas-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21474758_0011.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
