Art versus nature in disease : a refutation of naturalism / by A. Henriques.

  • Henriques, A. (Amos), 1812-1880.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Art versus nature in disease : a refutation of naturalism / by A. Henriques. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    4. The proximate cause of all curative processes of medicinal substances must be virtually their specific pharmacopathic action.^ And tlius tlie problem con- cerning tlie modus operandi of remedial agencies resolves itself into tlie following apparently para- doxical question: How do these extraneous and heterogeneous substances^ naturally inimical to the vital power and the normal conditions of living existences^ become transformed into curative agents without leaving any residue of the medicinal sub- stance ? Now medical art_, as at present constituted^ pro- ceeds to fulfil this highly important object of its beneficent mission in the two following fundamental modes: 1. The substitutive or pharmacopathic. 2. The specific or patholytic. The first method_, which is the one generally adopted by the old school^ consists simp]y in the substitution of an artificial medicinal for the natural disease. The remedial agent thus selected has no special relation to the morbid action itself, but is applied to a remote healthy part or organ of the * Sir John Eorbes admits only six specifics, but he has not given his reasons for this limitation. Hahnemann has demon- strated that every medical agent has necessarily a specific kind, mode, and degree of action upon the living organism—a fact which must henceforth be considered a truism in medical art. The therapeutical problem is—Given a disease, what is the rule for selecting a specific remedial agent ? and what is the relation between the given disease and the specific ?