Therapeutics can become a science : essay LIV / by William Sharp.

Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Therapeutics can become a science : essay LIV / by William Sharp. 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.

    5/34 (page 5)
    that substances can be found which have the power to counteract morbid processes going on in the body ? And, if such substances are found, is it possible that their actions can be governed by laws ? In replying to the first question it is necessary to observe that the question is not on a matter of opinion but on one of fact, and, therefore, that it cannot be answered either affirmatively or negatively, by argu- ment. The proof of a fact lies in evidence, not in argument; and the evidence must consist of facts, not of authorities. This being so, the question may be thus stated :—Are thei’e known individual facts which give sufficient evidence that substances have been found which can counteract the morbid processes under con- sideration ? It will, therefore, be seen that the aspect of drug- action before us in this Essay is not that on which we have been steadily looking in several of the later Essays. We have been looking at their action in disordering health. We have now to look at their action in healing disease. We are, therefore, in pursuit of facts witness- ing to us the truth concerning the power of drugs in counteracting morbid processes going on in an unhealthy body. The field in which these facts are to be sought for is that in which experiments with drugs have been made on the sick. When we remember that these experiments have been going on uninterruptedly for many hundred years, we cannot but ask, — How is it that the question we are now engaged upon has not been answered long ago ? Surely, the experiments must have been very badly made, or very negligently observed. For, is it not wonderful that the possibility of drugs conteracting disease should still be doubted ? And does not the doubt proclaim, as with a trumpet, the false methods of experimenting which have hitherto been pursued ? Next, let it be observed that the action of drugs given in large doses as emetics, purgatives, diaphoretics, sialogogues, &c. &c. is not included in this question ; it is well known that such doses do not counteract morbid processes, but produce fresh ones. Let it also be observed that when several drugs are put together in a prescription, as is almost universally done, the effects following the administration of them