An inquiry into the reasons and results of the prescription of intoxicating liquors in the practice of medicine / by F.R. Lees.

  • Frederic Richard Lees
Date:
1866
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the reasons and results of the prescription of intoxicating liquors in the practice of medicine / by F.R. Lees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [6] I. OF DOCTORS Am) DOCTORS. fP physicians were the dispensers of a Science, there would be a general and permanent agreement in their practice, and Philanthropy could not possibly have any ground of complaint. I therefore propose, as my fii-st work, to consider Whether Medicine is a Science. § 1. In entering on the discussion of any branch of Science (which, if it mean anything, means clear-seeing), the first condition of success in our Truth-search must be the definite and intelligible use of language. Words axe ' definite,' or transparent, when they are free from ambiguity or double- meaning ; they are ' intelligible' when employed in their usual sense. Words, like Scripture, are not of private interpretation, and it is at once illegitimate and confasing to use old terms in a novel sense, and with an arbitrary signification. The Sophist alone wiU consciously do it. I have before me an inquiry into a branch of the subject of Medicine. By that word I mean, first, the doctrine or plan of ' heahng' or ' curing' a diseased body : second, an element of materia medica which ' heals ' or ' cures.' By ' disease ' I understand, what everybody else means (save a few doctrinaires)—a dis- ordered state of the frame, both as to structure and work,—a want of ease in the function, arising from a want of fit matter and fitness in the organ. It is this illness, or maZady, which the doctor has to change by ' treatment' into ZieaZness—if he can; this state of (Zisarrangement, defect, or ia-jicrj which he has to re-adjiist or rectify : i.e. put ' right.' If, then, a man tells me, that ' disease ' is itself a ' right,' and not a ' wrong ' state— is a groocZness, not an illness—and that a maladj, disorder, or defect, is a remedial, pe7-fectiiig, rectifying process,—I can only turn away in pity, or request him to talk to me again when he has learnt to speak intelligibly. If he has anything 'right' to say—let him find right-words in which to express it, instead of wrong ones that muddle the whole subject. § 2. Inharmony with the common and historical meaning of 'Disea.se,' a.s a derangement of parts or function, the philosophy of Medicone demands in each concrete case—the solution of two problems: Ist. In what does this mal-condition consist ? •Znd. From what Causes or conditions preceding does it arise ?
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