An inaugural discourse on medical eclecticism : by James Conquest Cross, M.D.

  • Cross, James Conquest
Date:
1835
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural discourse on medical eclecticism : by James Conquest Cross, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Epochs occasionally arrive in medical science from which the observer may take a more or less commanding survey of its past and of its probable future history. Such is, emphatically, the character of the present busy and enterprising period. In every sense, and under every interpretation, it is strictly, and in an extraordinary degree, eventful. Its checkered annals record no age so full of zeal, so prodigal of industry, or so opulent in the most wonderful and magnificent intellectual achievements, as the one in which we live. From the days of the Coan sage up to the present interesting moment, the medical mind has been either haunted by the phantoms of superstition, blinded by Ibc preju- dices of fanaticism, or misled by the :visions of system. During the middle ages, it humbled itself, obsequiously, before the shrine of an absurd monkish idolatry. After the reviviscence of learning in Europe, it clung, in hopeless despondency, to the gratuitous dicta of ancient authority, and, until within a very few years, and even at this moment, except within the boundaries of a single empire in Europe, it is still held in a state of the most abject and humiliating bondage, by the arrogant assumptions of system. The rise, decline, and downfall of the different systems that have deranged and con- vulsed the science, from the time of Galen to thai of Broussais, constitute, in truth, its literal and comprehensive history. This being the case, the physician, familiar with die events of his profession, must lament, and the heart of the philanthropist must bleed, to reflect upon the thousands of valuable lives that have been madly sacrificed upon system's unhallowed shrine. With a worse than heathenish infatuation, thousands are still throw- ing their unsuspecting offerings headlong upon the altar already crimsoned in human gore. But we trust the blind and fearful spirit of desolation, abroad in the valley of the Mississippi, will, ere long, be extinguished. How cheering to the spirits, and how ani- mating to the hopes of the friends of humanity, to see the sun of real science rising in a far distant land; and although its feeble rays are yet scarcely felt amidst the deep and palpable darkness by which we are surrounded, it is rapidly mounting to the meri- dian, and then we shall have the whole vast field of medicine filled with a steady and unflickering blaze of light. I wish not to dissimulate—it is to France I make allusion. There, more ardor, enterprise, and intellect arc employed in the cultivation of the profes- sion than in any other country of the world; and there, too, unwearied effort has marked its triumphs by more numerous, important, and wonderful achievements. It is in France alone that the phantoms of superstition have been exorcised, the fetters of pre- judice broken asunder, and the long and disastrous reign of systematic medicine lias, at last, completely expired. Even,thnt beautiful and magnificent structure denominated p/tysiologivm has been subverted] broken in pieces, and its shattered and glittering fng- ments rolled over and ground to dust by the chariot wheels of reason. The name of Broussais, identified as it undeniably is with the present brilliant condi- tion of pathological science, must live upon the bright and enduring page of history, an object of grateful admiration, as long as disease shall entail its miseries upon man, the science of medicine continue to be an object oflibcral and dignified study,or its practice a useful and honourable profession. But his system, imposing as was its aspect, plausible its pretensions, and commanding its influence, has, already, ceased ,o be a subject of angry and bitter discussion. Assailed, on all sides, with the most u'nfitullering ardor and unwavering resolution, the physiological chief has been defeated in every battle, driven from every position, and forced, at last, to surrender, avowing, in the face of the world, that be looked to postcriiy for justice, the present untoward and refractory gene- ration being too unprincipled to be reformed by advice, r.nd too stupid to be enlightened bv instruction. Svstematic medicine no longer reigns triumphant in France. Those illustrious indi- viduals, who carried forward, so victoriously, the crusude against the doctrine of iriita- tion, and who have led the science forth from the jargon of the schools and the fopperies of the sects, have, to a man, repudiated the systems as the idle and groundless assumptions,