Volume 1

Observations on the utility and administration of purgative medicines in several diseases / [James Hamilton].

James Hamilton

Date:: 1806

Credit: Observations on the utility and administration of purgative medicines in several diseases / [James Hamilton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

29/382 page 3

$PURGATIVE MEDICINES _ s Several circumftances indeed connected with the {cience of medicine, have retarded its improvement, and given a plaufibility to this charge of uncertainty 5 and none more than the different theories which have been advanced in explanation of the phenome- na of the animal fyftem in health and in difeafe. As'the frame and bent of the human mind render theory unavoidable ; and as theory in medicine wall be fafe and ufeful in proportion as it is free from error; it is of confequence to afcertain the caufes of thofe errors to which it is expofed. Errors in theoretical medicine may be referred, in the firft place, to the hafty conclufions which the earlier Phyficians drew from the few facts which were known to them; and to the fafcinating pro- penfity to form fyftems, upon data too limited in number, and often contradictory. In the fecond place, phyficians have been unfuc- cefsful in the eftablifhment of true theory, from not having had fufficiently comprehenfive views of the <lifferent organs and functions of the animal body. To this circumftance is owing the rife of the humo- ral, the chemical, the mechanical, and of the ner- ¥OUS “ee as diftinct fyftems. Had the dog- A2 | matifts$

Observations on the utility and administration of purgative medicines in several diseases / [James Hamilton].

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