Sequel to Outlines of medical proof / [Thomas Mayo].

  • Thomas Mayo
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sequel to Outlines of medical proof / [Thomas Mayo]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/48 page 10
    abstraction prevalent before his time, whereby the for¬ mation of an abstract idea was presumed to imply the “ abstracting and cutting away of all those circum¬ stances and differences which might determine it to any particular existence.”* In no pursuit is it more desirable that the abstractions necessary for general principles should be presented in close coexistence with realities, and identified with individuals, than in the philosophy of medicine. This consideration is rendered more necessary by its present position* Owing to the vagueness of dynamical speculation, as it was conducted during the last century, we have till very lately been indisposed to seek pathological truths, except where they might be most definitely localised, and, as it were, realised: hence the attractiveness of morbid anatomy. We are now returning (but without any tendency to neglect the latter source of information) in a far wiser spirit than heretofore to the dynamical manifestations of disease. If, in conducting these inquiries, we resolve to disembody properties, and so to view them in the abstract as to lose sight of them in the concrete indi¬ vidual, we shall find the spirit of inquiry again escape out of its legitimate circle, and wander back into that of Stahl, or Darwin, or Brown.f * Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge. t It any one wish to be made aware of the expediency of keeping the speculative principle under the influence of the prac¬ tical one in our researches, he need only ponder over a few of the hypothetical expressions most employed in medical reasoning, and most necessary to our understanding each other t—stimulants, sedatives, tonics, irritants, irritation, &c. If in this meditation
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3