Medical sociology : a series of observations touching upon the sociology of health and the relations of medicine to society / By James Peter Warbasse.

  • James Peter Warbasse
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical sociology : a series of observations touching upon the sociology of health and the relations of medicine to society / By James Peter Warbasse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    first physical study applied to him. Seeking for means to alleviate his diseases, in the crude ages long passed, was the very natural beginning of this branch of biologic interest. Had mankind gone about this study in a truly scientific manner, anatomy, physi- ology, pathology, and hygiene would have been stud- ied first, and then the treatment of diseases built upon these. But in the beginning of enlightened interest in human health scientific methods had not been adopted. An objection to the name, medical, is that it confuses those who are not familiar with scientific nomenclature. The meaning and mission of medical science is often misunderstood. ]\Iedicine is the science devoted to the study of the hiology of man: and since health is his best posses- sion, medical science has as its special aim the inves- tigation of those conditions which destroy his health, and the study of their causes, their prevention, and their treatment: and ultimately has for its end to pro- mote his physical efficiency, to relieve pain, and to prolong life. All of the^e are being attained. It is evident to the scientific mind that in medicine there can be no schools with fixed creeds, sects, sys- tems, or short cuts to knowledge. There is but one medical science, and that is the science which seeks for the truth. Like all of the sciences, its progress must seem to the impatient to be slow, stumbling, and groping. But three thousand years of research and experience and two hundred and fifty years of