Reply to Dr. McGilchrist's "Remarks" on Professor Bennett's introductory lecture, "The present state of the theory and practice of medicine" / by John Glen.
- Glen, John, M.A.
- Date:
- 1856
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Reply to Dr. McGilchrist's "Remarks" on Professor Bennett's introductory lecture, "The present state of the theory and practice of medicine" / by John Glen. 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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![|l only in the absence of theoretical knowledge]—on the impos- i* sibility of discovering the hiws which regulate health and dis- itcase—on the certainty that these laws are irregular and fugitive —on the reasons which may be conceived to have led to the a abandonment of blood-letting in pneumonia. Meanwhile Dr 1 Bennett's third instance is unassailed. Now, surely even if the u critic were triumphant (which, certainly, he is not) in demo- I lishing Dr Bennett's first and second instance, he is scarcely acting like a canny logical Scotchman, who would have made siccar by another home-thrust at the remaining proofs. 1 Rather does he act like an impulsive barbarian horde, which, ! supposing it has routed one flank of the opposing front, there- t upon deems itself victorious, and turns at once to plunder the i baggage. At last Dr M'Gilchrist collects his forces and faces the third : instance. In it Dr Bennett shows that the theory of cell-forma- t tion and its conditions (though not the pkimitive fact which i some suppose), is most useful already in application to treat- I inent. What says the critic ? Does he deny that it is a theory ? ' No. That it is useful in practice ? No. Yet that is the sole ! point of interest noio. What then says the critic ? He asks if i Dr Bennett means to exhume a mouldering humoral pathology ? The inquiry is palpably absurd to one who knows the vast i gulph between the modern doctrines of cell development and 1 the crude opinions of humoral pathology in former ages. But ! as the question is further irrelevant, it may be at once, on this ! ground, set aside; while there, unanswered and triumphant, ■ stands Dr Bennett's third instance. From that point unassailed ' any more by critic, Dr Bennett rehearses his list of the treat- I ment of growths, abscesses, pneumonia, pleurisy, and cancer, and claims as proper triumphs the beneficial changes in the ' treatment of apoplexy, syphilis, small-pox, phthisis, and Bright's ■ disease. Tiicrcfrom, justly, he infers by induction that groat ' w the influence of medical science.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21478168_0021.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
