Volume 1

A system of medicine by eminent authorities in Great Britain, the United States and the Continent / edited by William Osler, assisted by Thomas McCrae.

Date:
1907-10
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A system of medicine by eminent authorities in Great Britain, the United States and the Continent / edited by William Osler, assisted by Thomas McCrae. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    time the necessarily imperfect state of organic chemistry has given an undue prominence to certain half-truths, and no department of medicine has lent itself more easily to pseudo-science. The elaborate sections by Professor Taylor and by Professor Chittenden illustrate how surely we are reaching a position of accurate and sound knowledge. More particu- larly is this the case with the complicated processes of normal metabolism, and we are in consequence better able to understand and study intelli- gently the perversions met with in disease. No articles in this volume are deserving of more careful study by all who wish to appreciate the new standpoint in physiological and pathological chemistry. In 1885 we had not realized clearly our position with regard to the infectious diseases. The extension of our knowledge of the causative agents of the acute infections has been followed by a study of the laws of immunity, which has not only revolutionized general pathology, but has also opened out new lines of treatment. Vaccines, antitoxins, curative sera of various kinds have been discovered, and with this rapid progress it is not astonishing that at times we have gone too fast and too far, and that there have been the disappointments and failures invariably associated with human endeavor, but these only serve to bring into sharper contrast the solid results which the labor of two decades has secured. No single advance is more striking than that relating to our knowledge of the protozoa as causes of disease. The brilliant researches of Theobald Smith on Texas fever were the first to make the profession appreciate the part which this class of organisms played in the acute infections, and gave, moreover, the demonstration of a scientific method and insight of a most remarkable character. II. Like other departments of philosophy, medicine began with an age of wonder. The accidents of disease and the features of death aroused surprise and stimulated interest, and a beginning was made when man first asked in astonishment. Why should these things be? Surrounded everywhere by mysteries, he projected his own personality into the world about him, and peopled heaven and earth with Powers, responsible alike for the good and for the evil, who were to be propitiated by sacrifices or placated by prayers. Satisfying the inborn longing of the human mind for an explanation, these celestial creatures of his handiwork presided over every action of his life. For countless ages man regarded disease as a manifestation of these powers; the evil eye and demoniacal possession, the murrain on the cattle, and the sickness that destroyeth in the noon- day had alike a supernatural origin. Crude and bizarre among the ])rimi- tive nations, the.se ideas of disease received among the Greeks and Romans a practical development worthy of these grt'at peoples. There have been systems of so-called divine healing in all the great civilizations, but, for beauty of conception and for grandeur of detail in the execution, all are as nothing in coinparison with the cult of the Son of Apollo, of .dilsculapius, the God of healing. To him were raised superb striu- ures which were filled with the most sublime products of Greek art, and which were at once temples and sanatoria. Among the most importatfl