The importance of general therapeutics in the treatment of ocular diseases : an address delivered in the Section on Opthalmology of the American Medical Association, at the fifty-fifth annual session, June, 1904 / by A. Maitland Ramsay, M.D.

  • Andrew Maitland Ramsay
Date:
1905
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The importance of general therapeutics in the treatment of ocular diseases : an address delivered in the Section on Opthalmology of the American Medical Association, at the fifty-fifth annual session, June, 1904 / by A. Maitland Ramsay, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    they accept a clearly expressed opinion as a scientific fact, or even mistake a mere impres- sion for a real opinion. Many of the thera- peutic measures so much in vogue at present —radium, X-rays, currents of high potential, etc., etc.—are purely empirical, and the routine employment of these forces, of whose real pro- perties we at present know so little, seems rather to be a reversion to the old idea of the supernatural origin of disease than to be founded on a due recognition of its natural causes. Doubtless these means are full of pro- mise, and the investigation of the ray world that extends on either side of the narrow limits of the visible spectrum may reveal mys- teries of which at the present moment we can form merely a very faint idea; but at this stage of the study it can only bring discredit on ourselves and on our methods to make such an assertion as that, under the influence of ultra-violet or any other rays, “cancers are cured.” While it must never be forgotten that treat- ment is an art, and is none the less valuable because it is empirical, yet the whole trend of modern progress is to appeal less and less to
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