A reply to certain observations of John Forbes, M.D / [George Macilwain].

  • George Macilwain
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A reply to certain observations of John Forbes, M.D / [George Macilwain]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that it was not written for practice; but it seemed altogether above his habits of reasoning. But find fault he must; so he first quarrels with its expense—a book, reader, which contains 550 closely printed pages, and bound in cloth boards, for 12s.; in fact, published, as near¬ ly as could be calculated, at cost price. No person, we think, could have possibly gathered the smallest idea of the book from the so- called Review. This appears to us bad faith with the public ; from the facts we are about to cite, the reader may judge of the Review¬ er’s truthfulness towards the author. In opening the argument, we had been making some general observations, and then proceeded to say—“ but my object is to teach ; therefore I will try to shew “ you how to set about the work in question; and first, I think, as “ a basis, you may assume the following data. * That the body “ ( contains within itself certain powers of preservation,—of main- “ e taining an equilibrium under a variety of disturbing influences; ee c that diseases, in all their diversified forms, are in fact but actions “ f of this preservative power; and that the operation of the latter f takes place, subject to certain laws of limitation, of which our “ e present knowledge enables us to form no very correct idea.’ ” This passage, leaving out the commencement, shewing the object, the Reviewer quotes, as far as the word idea, omitting the concluding words—“ many diseases being incurable, perhaps, in consequence of our ignorance.” This, however, is a trifle. Anxious that the student should make no mistake, we further cautioned him against supposing that we were really assuming any thing, by the following note, which (it is important to remark) followed the passage, at the bottom of the page; so that it could not have been overlooked. “ There “ is no objection, in the abstract, to the assumption that any process u °f a living body has a tendency to preserve that body; the ob- “ jection, if we examine it, arises from the fact, that many of the ct processes we actually see, end practically in the death of that “ body; neither do I make the assumption permanently as such; I wish you to take it as a sort of temporary structure, subsequently to be withdrawn, unless it be supported. If, in fact, all diseases “ ended in preserving the body, the assumption would be unde- “ niable the rule absolute. Hence, we must, to retain the assump¬ tion at all, either prove the rule absolute by the simple fact which I have mentioned, appealing to its invariable success, or explain
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