The dynamic cure / by Laroy Sunderland.

  • La Roy Sunderland
Date:
1869, ©1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dynamic cure / by Laroy Sunderland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    The patient, himself, did not Imow what his disease was, nor where it was located. A venerable Physician, when addressing his Profession, on this subject, uses the following truthful language : — Nothing can be more illogical, than to draw our general conclusions, as we are sometimes too apt to do, from the results of insulated, and remarkable cases ; for, such cases may be found in support of any extravagance in medicine : and, if there is any point in which the vulgar differ from the judicious part of the profession, it is in drawing premature, and sweeping conclusions from scanty premises of this kind. Moreover, it is, in many cases not less illogical to attribute the removal of diseases, or even of their troublesome symp- toms, to the means that have been most recently employed. It is a common error, to infer that things which are consecu- tive in the order of time have, riecessaril}^, the relation of cause and effect. It often happens, that the last remedy used, bears off the credit of having cured a -disease ; whereas, the result may have been owing to the first remedy employed, or to the act of Nature [JVutrition] unassisted by any of the remedies. * Such is the sound judgment by which, intelligent, can- did physicians, (and there are many such), discriminate between quackery and real merit in the practice of the healing art. Caution, Be on your guard, that you are not lured into the use of some worthless nostrum, under the pretence that the medicine is made from the stomach of the ox, and hence if you put a quantity of rennet into your own stomach it will assist Nutrition. Do not believe a word of this nonsense. The idea is unphilosophical and absurd. An extra quantity of rennet in your stomach, will no more assist your digestion, in the way it should be assisted, than a quantity of liver, eaten, would cure you of a liver * Dr. Jacob Bigelow.