Wilkinson's botanico-medical practice : in six parts / by G.E. Wilkinson.

  • Wilkinson, G. E.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Wilkinson's botanico-medical practice : in six parts / by G.E. Wilkinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    have been believed to be sufficient to explain the phenomena [of disease,] yet they have all proved unsatisfactory. Practice, page 31. The science of medicine has been cultivated,'' con- tinues Gregory, more than two thousand years. The most de- voted industry and the greatest talents have been exercised upon it; and, though there have been great improvements, and there is much to be remembered, yet upon no subject have the wild spirit and the eccentric dispositions of the imagination beenjnore widely displayed. Men of extensive fame glory in pretending to see deeper into the recesses of nature than nature herself ever intended; they invent hypotheses, they build theories, and dis- tort facts to suit their aerial creations. The celebrity of many of the most prominent characters of the last century, will, ere long, be discovered only in the libraries of the curious, and re- collected only by the learned. Page 29. Lieutaud.—Of the Parisian School, in the last century, Dr. Joseph Lieutaud, Physician to Louis XVI., &c, said in his Synopsis of Medicine, page 1, that in what had been written before his day, he found it difficult to disengage certainty from uncertainty, and to separate the useful from the trivial. Hence, many of no mean rank have doubted whether it would not be better to give up the undertaking, and confine themselves to new observations, out of which, when well investigated and arranged, there might be produced a sounder theory. The uncertainty of medicine, which is thus a theme for the philosopher and the hu- morist, is deeply felt by the practical physician in the daily exer- cise of his art. Intel. Pow., page 293. Sydenham.— Physic, says Sydenham, has ever been pes- tered with hypotheses, the multitude and precariousness whereof, have only served to render the art uncertain, fluctuating, falla- cious, mysterious, and in a manner unintelligible. « Certain it is, that not a single medicine has been discovered by their assist- ance, since their introduction into physic, above two hundred years ago; nor have they let the least light into the affair of ad- ministering medicines properly in particular circumstances ; but rather served to bewilder us, to perplex practice, and create dis- putes that are never to be decided without recourse to experi- ence, the true test of opinions in physic. Preface, page 5.