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.

    28/882
    tliese data (amounting to several luindrcds in some instances) were treated as factors in the search of a solution—the solution submitted at the cud of each section, in italics in the first seven- teen chapters, and thereafter in large type. The final solution reached in each instance was submitted to a rigid test, however, viz., absolute concordance with all other solutions in the ivorh— a process which brouglit to light any defect, not only in the solu- tion itself, but likewise in all conclusions previously adduced. The chances of error were thus reduced to a minimum, while a solid framework was elaborated for future discoveries by other investigators. These details are given not only with the object of aiding others who might wish to Avork on parallel lines, but to illus- trate another salient feature brought to light by my editorial work upon the “AnnuaP and the “Cyclopajdia,” namely, that the present tinsatisfactorij condition of Medicine is due to the fact that investigators do not avail themselves of the enormous array of solid data available to ascertain the truth. Blinded by the fallacious idea that the Avorth of a contribution to our knoAvl- edge should be gauged solely by the ncAV experiments and clinical observations it adds to those already aA-ailable, they lose sight of tbe fact that such experiments and observations are but bricks and mortar out of Avbich a coherent and truly useful Medicine— one indeed Avorthy of ranking as a science—can be built. The conception of ]\Iedicine'presented in the second volume —and foreshadowed in the first—is submitted only as an effort in this direction. It aims to replace the empirical and hazardous use of remedies Avhich has undermined increasingly the confi- dence of our best observers in them, by a system of therapeutics based on solidly established facts Avhich makes it possible to trace every phase of their action to its source, the centers influenced may thus be used by the physician as so many levers through which he can regulate the defensive agencies of the organism and the mechanisms Avhich distribute .them, precisely as a gen- eral can govern the defensi\'e movements of an army in the field. As the disease-causing substances, toxins, endotoxins, toxic wastes, etc., are also sboAvn to produce their effects through a morbid action upon the centers influenced by our remedies, they may tbus be met directly Avhere they strike and antago- nized before they can destroy life.