Medicine in modern times, or, Discourses delivered at a meeting of the British Medical Association at Oxford / by Dr. Stokes [and others] ; with a report on mercury by Hughes Bennett.

Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine in modern times, or, Discourses delivered at a meeting of the British Medical Association at Oxford / by Dr. Stokes [and others] ; with a report on mercury by Hughes Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    scientific appliance and metliod to the progress of medical knowledge by means of light, sound, and direct touch. The exploration of the nervous system by electrical agencies, by manometers and the like, through the recent labours of many, but of late especially of M. Duchenne de Boulogne, and the registration of changes of temperature in evidence of chemical alterations and in proof of corresponding alterations in the organism, should be cited as among the less developed but equally certain advances of physical enquiry as applied to disease. T/:je indirect relations of Medicine to the other bra;nches of Physical Science are more remarkable still, but being also more remote are less familiar. Foremost it should be remembered what is the effect of the temper of Modern Science on Modern Medicine. Now it must at once be granted that opinion and authority in Medicine have ceased to have any value as such, except where the authority is derived from high moral and intellectual qualities combined with large experience. But this is a personal question, like the personal equation of astronomical observers, and does not affect the framework of the Art. The framework of Medicine simply considered as an Art now depends on accurate data, on experiment, on observation, and direct induction therefrom. But though this be true, yet Medicine as an Art cannot always go hand in hand with Medicine as a Science. The physician, with emergencies constantly before him, cannot wait to act till Science has established her conclusions with abso- lute certainty. In so far as Medicine is purely scientific
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