An eclectic compendium of the practice of medicine / by Lyman Watkins.

  • Watkins, Lyman, 1854-
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An eclectic compendium of the practice of medicine / by Lyman Watkins. 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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    thus, in our philosophy, there is no special remedy specific for the cure of any special disease. It is a law of nature that likej causes will produce like effects, other things being equal. This law is so well understood, and so wide-spread in its application, that all ages of men have based their calculations upon its cer- tainty, and have been able to advance in knowledge and im- prove in the arts and sciences. It is assumed that there is no abrogation of this law in the vital operations of the human body, and that a remedy which ] will relieve a certain definite morbid condition at one time, will always do the same under like circnmstances. It is evident that, in order to be specific in the administration of remedies, it is essential that a very close observation of the symptoms of disease should be made, and that Specific Diagno- sis must go hand in hand with Specific Medication. As our remedies are varied to suit the many different phases presented by morbid states, we must be on the alert to detect these phases, and by study learn to apply the particular specific in- dicated by them. In doing this we may have to set aside knowledge previously acquired, and that which has caused us no small amount of labor to obtain; we may have to unlearn much that we have learned with great trouble ; we may have to emancipate ourselves from former impressions, and perhaps give up that which, by long association, we have accepted as a matter of course. But all this is ever l-equired from the medical man who desires to keep up with the march of scientific progress. Physicians of every school are seeking for a more direct method of medication, and the indiscriminate administration of remedies without special reason is falling into disrepute. Methods must be more exact, and medication more direct, before we can place medicine upon a strictly scientific basis.