Medicine and psychology : the annual address to the Hunterian Society, for 1866 / by Dennis de Berdt Hovell.

  • Hovell, Dennis De Berdt.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine and psychology : the annual address to the Hunterian Society, for 1866 / by Dennis de Berdt Hovell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    in the ]ater case particularly it frequently happens that attention is not called to the patient till a chill, or some other cause, throws an undue amount of duty on the damaged organ. What is the plan of treatment? The recognition certainly of the pathological state, but not necessarily the attempt to rectify it: we cannot aspiringly attempt to restore the organically damaged structure, nevertheless we may do a welcome work yet, by studying fully the compensating power of Nature—for there it is, silently, patiently, and certainly awaiting assistance; we may give much relief by the good old rule, the simple plan, the removal of Isedentia, and afterwards enhance it by the institution of juvantia. The im- perfection of therapeutics does not lie in the want of medicines, but of the knowledge how to select and apply them; not in the want of power, but the absence of conscious possession of it, and of the requisite skill to use it. One source of difficulty in administering medicines beneficially is the de- ficiency of certain and accurate knowledge of their uses and effects, so that want of faith in physic really means that want of confidence which arises from imperfect knowledge of the subject, which shelters and excuses itself behind the acknow-