Donald William Charles Hood

“ In every age in which we may study the history of medicine, we cannot fail to be impressed by the one dominant idea which appears to have possessed the minds of those who have made medicine their peculiar study; I allude to the search for specific remedies against disease. There are undoubtedly those who profess to believe that we have but to search with sufficient acuteness, to find a remedy specific in its action against any disease which we may be called upon to treat ”

“ We see the theories which at one time or other have possessed the minds of those who have been engaged in the practice of medicine overthrown, when viewed by that pure light which the investigation of disease alone can give. ”

“ The use of our instruments of precision, our knowledge, of pathology, all tend to narrow that bridge which must extend as a connecting link between empirical treatment, and treatment depending for its success upon a comprehensive knowledge of the natural history of disease. ”

“ Undoubtedly one of the most important steps which medicine has made in its development, is the recognition of the difference between disease itself and those symptoms which may be caused as the result of such disease. We shall find that in most, if not in all, of the older writers on medicine, the treatment of the physician was directed towards the alleviation of those prominent symptoms, which, then not so much looked upon as symptoms, were only recognized as the main cause of the attack. ”

“ And the highest aim of the physician is to gain such knowledge as will assist him in stamping out those evils of the human race which are the necessary concomitants of disease. And it needs no mere believer in an Utopian existence to follow me in this statement. The practical daily work of the physician, and, indeed, still more the study of medical history, cannot but convince the would-be sceptic that a very large proportion of those diseases which we are called upon to treat, are by their very nature to be prevented ”

“ We find dropsy spoken of as a disease, a disease to be treated on definite principles, but it is indeed but very lately that we find the true connection thoroughly recognized, as that which exists when we place such a state of the system in its true position, and realize the importance of following to the very fountain-head that train of events which has led to those conditions of tissue change which demand the exudation of serous fluid as a necessary complement. ”

“ Instructive, indeed, are the lessons to be gained from a study of the History of Medicine, but perhaps none more so than those which point out to us the advantage of studying disease with special regard to its ultimate consequences, rather than with respect alone to its more prominent symptoms. ”

“ A brilliant portrait it may be lifelike, of disease, is doubtless of great value in assisting us to recognize varieties from the normal standard, but for the good of the public we require that the physician should not only recognise the actual existence of disease, but it should be his earnest endeavour to detect those changes, be they only functional, which mark a pre-pathologic stage ”

“ It has had certainly an evil effect upon the growth of the practice of medicine, for we may constantly find those who, while deploring their own want of exact knowledge in the absence of those remedies which are known to have a specific influence, deny their patients the means of relief, which doubtless originating in empiricism, prove themselves to be of advantage in the daily treatment of disease. ”

“ A wondrous step in the right direction when considered with regard to the treatment of disease in his day, but the theory upon which Stahl based his practice was ridiculous in the extreme. He taught that the soul was gifted with that most extraordinary power of self-intelligence which enabled it to detect the presence of any noxious influence, and not only thus recognizing their presence without any physical connection taking place, was capable of exciting those changes in the body which were antagonistic to the pernicious influences which otherwise would result as the effect. ”

“ It is, I say, difficult for us in the present day to realize the depth of ignorance and superstition which must have existed, to have rendered necessary such a procedure on the part of Parliament, and we can feel no wonder that a man gifted as Caius must have been, with more than an ordinary amount of intelligence, should have hesitated before applying himself to the study of medicine in England, but rather sought further help at the hand of a foreign school ”

“ The study of medicine, as carried on in the present day, is characterized by the attempt to base the art upon a more exact scientific foundation than that upon which we find it resting in former years—may be, we strain the attempt too far. ”

“ Such a division helps us to appreciate what an enormous number of so-called diseases originate in a previous attack of more or less acute character; and further it should act as an incentive to the physician to pay all the greater attention to that period which immediately follows any of those acute attacks, which so frequently, as their result, leave some slight spot of organic change, the rapid growth of which leads to irreparable degeneration of tissue, ending sooner or later in the death of the sufferer. ”

“ Foreasmuch as the science and cunning of physic and surgery, to the perfect knowledge whereof be requisite both great learning and ripe experience, is daily within this realm exercised by a great multitude of ignorant persons; of whom the greater part have no manner of insight in the same, or in any other kind of learning ”

“ And more than all we shall see medicine now studied with the view rather of anticipating disease or its results, and bringing to the help of its investigations that aid from science, which directly and indirectly contributes so largely to the ultimate success of such an undertaking. ”

“ In Stahl's idea of the almost omnipotent power of the soul, we may, I think, trace an attempt to explain those subtle changes of nutrition and repair which we now understand as connected in a great measure with the nervous system. ”

“ And we shall gain fresh courage in our researches when we recall to mind the immense benefits which we can already count as ours—benefits which are due directly to the investigation of disease in relation to its causation. ”

“ Consider the advance which has taken place in our knowledge relating to those affections which owe their birth to a want of appreciation of those hygienic principles so necessary to the perfect health of a community ”

“ If we pass in review those diseases which come before us, we can with advantage consider them, as indeed we must, when they come before us in practice, first with regard to their single primary effect, and then, secondly, with regard to those complications or sequelæ which are apt, as a result of subsequent development, to follow in their train. ”