Epidemics : their origin and prevention / by J. Foster Palmer.

  • Palmer, J. Foster (James Foster)
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemics : their origin and prevention / by J. Foster Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    terred by the artificial boundaries set by exclusive systems. It is as unscientific to be restrained in the search for truth by the dogmata of positivist bigotry as by those of religious bigotry. (b) Final Ends.—There remains, too, in the study and treatment of disease, notwithstanding all our pro- fessions of practical utilitarianism, a spirit of striving after an unattainable ideal, which rises superior to all human experience, and thus transcends the bounds of all purely experimental systems. Especially is this the case in relation to the subject now before us. This optimistic spirit is essential to the existence of the healing art, and, though often not conspicuous in indi- viduals, exercises, collectively, a very great influence, and carries us beyond the limits of the present to the possibilities of the future, keeping alive the ardour of research and the hope of progress. The final object of those engaged in the study of epidemiology and preventive medicine is to sweep off epidemic diseases from the face of the earth. This they will never succeed iu doing. But the ideal must be kept constantly in view, and it is by the search after this unattainable ideal that the mind of man is kept in a state of health and vigour. The ultimate aim of the study of medicine, said the late Dr. George Wilson, is the realisation of immortality for man.'' And although this end is never attained, and is being daily defeated by the death of patients we had hoped to save, the true clinical observer does not give way to despair, but continues to pursue the struggle against death with increasing earnestness. Thus, alone, will real progress be gained. It is the personal search for truth which keeps alive man's in- tellectual being, as it is the persona] struggle for food which keeps his physical being in health. If all our aims physical and intellectual, were attained, we should soon sink to the condition of mere animal