Lights and shadows of medical science : an address, delivered Feb. 27, 1872. / by Ezra M. Hunt.

  • Ezra Mundy Hunt
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lights and shadows of medical science : an address, delivered Feb. 27, 1872. / by Ezra M. Hunt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    The general practitioner is called upon to investigate departments, any one of which is full study for a life- time, and has to do with a range of physical and psy- chical laws, with studies of relations of cause- and effect—of disease and remedies—enough either to appal the stoutest heart, or to lead one with heroic determi- nation to put on the armor and endure hardness as destined to achieve. And, often, there must not only be decision, but quick decision; not merely a cool de- termination of methods, but an actual application of them with celerity, or else the patient is gone while the decision is pending, or its results are unapplied. I know of no profession in which there is more need of that thorough previous discipline of mind which de- velops the reasoning powers, and, at the same time, cultivates the love of patient investigation and labori- ous research, by which experiment can be followed up and followed out until it ripens into established facts and practical experience. It is well for us not only to be aware from the start, but to remind ourselves all along our medical practice, that the task we have undertaken is a very difficult one—to admit that our art has manifold uncertainties, just because metaphysics and natural philosophy have manifold uncertainties. But, admit, too, that conscious of these facts, we are also conscious that there are basic and immutable principles on which to operate ; and, admit, too, that we intend to follow them up and follow them out, until one after another mere hypo- theses are eliminated and real facts established. That is what makes any science a real science, and
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