Volume 1

The internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous.

  • Charles E. de M. Sajous
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2)i'6Ssions of o|)iiuoii. Iii fact, were I to do so, I would con- ceal similar coneliisions reached nearly twenty years ago, when, as editor of the “Annual of the Universal ^ledical Sciences,” it became my lot to collate, with the valued collaboration of many associates, the multitude of data, clinical and experi- mental, which were accumulating from year to year. Nor do they conflict with the prevailing estimate of the therapeu- tic worth of ]\Iedicinc among the best-informed medical men abroad. Skoda’s dictum of several years’ standing, “that we can diagnose disease, describe it, and get a grasp of it, but we dare not expect by any means to cure it,” has drifted along, on the ripples of time, until, hardly two years ago (1907), the president of a prominent British society. Dr. A. II. Brampton,® found it opportune to declare that “if any daring member has introduced a subject bearing on medical treatment, it has been with an apologetic air and liumhle mien, well knowing that if his remarks had any reference to the utility of drugs in the treatment of disease they would be subjected to good-humored banter, and received by those sitting in the seat of the scorn- ful with amused incredulity.” ^ly aim now, as it was when “Internal Secretions” was first projected, is to indicate what to me, at least, appears to be the main cause of the deplorable state of practical Medicine, and if possible to eliminate it. When, twenty years ago, I was brought face to face with the mass of heterogeneous material we term the “Medical Sciences,” and with the yearly crop of contradictory theories upon each disease, mode of treatment, etc., I soon realized that some gigantic flaw could alone account for so great a confusion. In the preface of the 1888 issue, I had stated that the “Annual” was intended “to become a helpmate to the jiractitioner in his efforts to relieve suffering, and to assist the investigator by correlating facts, thus enabling him the better to compare.” Whether much comparison was indulged in by others I can- not say, but the fact remains that, as far as my own position in the matter was concerned, I began then and there to seek for the flaw referred to. I must frankly confess that its identity was not difficult to find, namely: the invalidity of Physi- ologv'. Never, when it came to tracing a pathological condition, > A. H. Brampton: Lancet, Jan. 19, 1907.