Remarks on "The present state of the theory and practice of medicine" : being a review of Prof. Bennett's published introductory lecture (University of Edinburgh, session 1855-56) / by John M'Gilchrist, M.D.

McGilchrist, John, 1821-1864

Date:: 1856

Credit: Remarks on "The present state of the theory and practice of medicine" : being a review of Prof. Bennett's published introductory lecture (University of Edinburgh, session 1855-56) / by John M'Gilchrist, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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$advantage of our countryman—the general opinion in America as well as on the Continent—is there nothing else for it but that one must do violence to one's conscience to please Mr Glen! As to taking up the cudgels for Dr Bennett in his dispute with Dr Williams about cod-liver oil, we humbly submit that it is more tiian lie should expect of m«—clean out of the question. Let them figlit it out like school-boys. Fii'st big boy may say to second big boy—' You're a lie !' to which second big boy may retort—' And you're anotlier!'—but as long as they don't draw their penknives ou each other, the bystanders needn't interfere. Of No. 3, it is enough to say that, speaking generally, the fact is as we have stated it: in practice in this country sulphur ointment is fallen back upon in serious cases of scabies. And those who havn't spent all their professional lives in an hospital know, that the chief application of the Stavcsacre ointment is for the destruction of lice, not aceri. . At No. 4 ( Dr Bennett nowhere denies that fevers have changed their type ), the M.A. certainly lias us on the hip. We have got it this time. But, let the conqueror spare the vanquished! No. 5 we quote entire ;— Dr M'Gilchrist respectfully asks, ' What led to the abandonment of blood-letting in pneumonia ? ' but, instead of waiting for an answer as one would ha,vc expected from a respectful inquirer, he appears goad- ed on by a longing to fix Dr Bennett between the two horns of a dilem- ma, and volunteers a reply of his own. P. 19.) ' Either, he says, ' it was blind experience, or a theoretical demonstration of the modus oper- andi of venesection. Let Dr Bennett take his choice.' But really Dr Bennett must decline : for, in truth, that which led to the change {at least in Germany*) was neither blind experience, nor a theoretical de- monstration of the modus operandi of venesection, but the homoeopathic theory. Believing in this theory, Dr Fleischmnnn of the Homoeopathic Hospital, Vienna, treated all pneumonias by globules of the appropriate remedy, and his patients recovered more quicklj^ and thoroughly than in the bleeding establishment. But a medical bystander (Dr Joseph Skoda), observing and admitting the fact of recovery, formed another theory, that the cause was not a homoeopathic dose but the power of na- ture, in the absence of interference by bleeding. So he gathered cases, and tested the power of nature without globules and without bleeding, with this result, that his patients recovered as well as the homoeopathic, and, like them, better than those subjected to venesection. This is merely a story; but allowing it to be a true one, if it proves anything at all, it proves that it was experience that led to the compa- rative abandonment of blood-letting in pneumonia; for it seems he [Dr Skoda] gathered cases, and tested the power of nature. No. 6 we also quote :— Theoretical medicine will stand silent, or retreat apalled before the next visitation of cholera. (P. 16.) Here again is a doleful prophecy;$