Organon of the specific healing art / By Gottlieb Ludwig Rau, M.D. Translated from the German, with an essay on the present internal condition of the homoeopathic school, by C.J. Hempel. M.D.

  • Gottlieb Martin Wilhelm Ludwig Rau
Date:
1847
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Organon of the specific healing art / By Gottlieb Ludwig Rau, M.D. Translated from the German, with an essay on the present internal condition of the homoeopathic school, by C.J. Hempel. M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    =— the known causes of disease; or, in other words, to apply a rational treatment ; but they differ in regard to the means which the spirit of inquiry has pointed out as the most proper to attain that object. Idealism and empiricism govern in med- ceived idea of the moving forces of things, inquires particularly into their invisible and occult qualities, and loses itself in fruit- less attempts to account by general cosmic principles for the numerous forms of individual life. Recognizing the difficulty, or rather the impossibility of constructing a practical therapeutic system in accordance with empiricism have simply endeavored to elevate medicine to the rank of an experimental science. Huts and houses have been built, and bridges constructed, long before any one thought of writing a systematic treatise on architecture. In a similar manner the materials of a special therapeia had first to be collected before it was possible to com- pare them with one another, to deduce from them the condi- tions of similar or analogous phenomena, and to establish the principles of a general therapeia by logical reasoning. This route, however, does not lead to the discovery of a system which is based upon a knowledge of the fundamental princi- ple of life. Our knowledge is, in a great measure, fragmentary. Even those branches of medical science which have been cul- tivated with the greatest care—osteology and the anatomy of the soft parts—are still imperfect, and. are enriched every day with new discoveries. Physiology is still less perfect. We do not yet possess an accurate knowledge of the structure of the organs; we are still less acquainted with their importance and their functions. The majority of the most important phe- nomena, nutrition and sanguification, are still mysteries for us, ber of organs is still very incomplete. Pathology is based upon physiology, because we require to know the laws of the vital functions in their normal condi- tions, before we can obtain a clear notion of their anormal changes. In considering the narrow limits of our physiologi- cal knowledge, we will not be astonished at the obscurity of pathology, and the vagueness and uncertainty of our thera- peutic principles will at once become manifest. This uncer- tainty is denied, it is true, by a great number of physicians, particularly by those narrow-minded practitioners who accord an unlimited faith to the text-books and lectures of their teachers, and who, under the cloak of those authorities, think th Pa Oe eet ae
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