Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge.

  • Ridge, Benjamin
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    68/220 (page 56)
    Bronchial Congestion, or acid condition. If on tho other hand it is red, there is Bronchitis, or an inflammatory or alkaline state ; and so witli all other parts. All these indicate certain stages of disease of tho mucous membranes. Disease of the serous membmnes arc seldom accompanied by tongues denuded of fur ; but the very reverse, the fur being inordinately thick. When it is so, and also moist, these membranes are in a highly congestive or acid stage ; but if the fur becomes brown, dry, and rough, then they arc in an inflammatory or alkaline condition. By these means certain facts are verified, that there docs exist acid or congestive rheumatism, or cholera, or fevers, Ac., as distinct from their inflammatory or alkaline stages. To discriminate these is of tho utmost impoiiance, because their treatment is diametrically opposite. Thus there are broad rules for diagnosis as well as minute ones. Disease comes before the scientific investigator in such questionable shapes, that it induces him to localize it and make it the specific end of his inquiries. Empiricism, or experience, points out certain means which appear most appropriate in tho treatment; but as this is the act of every individual, and diftei*s so much, it seems an utter impossibility to come to any fixed conclusions, or for any one man to master all tho opinions that have been given by what arc called tho highest authorities. Every man, therefore, follows his oum ; hence the great discrepancy in all medical treatment. It does not follow that he who is best informed on all authorities theoretically is tho best practical physician; tho bedside destroys many illusions. The actual practice of medicine, or administration of remedies, may bo compared to a rickety statue on a constantly imtehed-up pillar founded on a solid base. Thus, anatomy and physiology form the scientific base ; pathology, chemistry, physical and vital laws, and many other studies in which science and art are combined, form the pillar wliich is always being patched and mended ; while the statin; thereon is only ko])t from falling liy tho most laborious and unremitting exertions of empiricism. Still, wherever tnith has triumphed, it has been by the discovery of scientific and fixed laws, and these must eventually guide the practice of medicine and the treatment of disease, however fiir from ti'uth they may be now.