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

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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$!«niuin, and hence other applications may be sometimes neces- nry, such as the Stavesacre ointment, which Bourguinon has c»own to be most powerful in destroying them. \ 4. Dr Bennett, in the face of historical evidence and living fxperience, has denied that fevers and inflammations have ever langed their type.—(P. 19.) This is inaccurate. Dr Bennett v)where denies that fevers have changed their type. 15. Dr M'Gilchrist respectfully asks, What led to the aban- onment of blood-letting in pneumonia ? but, instead of waiting rr an answer as one would have expected from a respectful in- iiiircr, he appears goaded on by a longing to fix Dr Bennett t3tween the two horns of a dilemma, and volunteers a reply of «fe osvn. (P. 19.) Either, he says, it was blind experience, ♦ a theoretical demonstration of the modus operandi of vene- cKJtion. Let Dr Bennett take his choice. But really Dr Ben- ett must decline: for, in truth, that which led to the change tit least in Germany) was neither blind experience, nor a theo- trtical demonstration of the modiis operandi of venesection, but de homoeopathic theory. Believing in this theory, Dr Fleisch- wann of the Homoeopathic Hospital, Vienna, treated all pneu- wonias by globules of the appropriate remedy, and his patients cxjovered more quickly and thoroughly than in the bleeding titablishment. But a medical bystander [Dr Joseph Skoda], •iserving and admitting the fact of recovery, formed another tieory, that the cause was not the homceopathic dose but the 't>wer of nature, in the absence of interference by bleeding. >0 he gathered cases, and tested the power of nature without 'iobules and without bleeding, with this result, that his itatients recovered as well as the homceopathic, and, like them, cttcr than those subjected to venesection. Theoretical medicine will stand silent, or retreat appalled efore the next visitation of cholera. (P. 16.) Here again is a loleful prophecy; but it will prove false. Theoretical medicine ■Wl not stand silent. It has already spoken with such authority$