Medical history

“ This period is indeed the golden age of medical progress and one to which the historian or philosopher must give his best attention if he is to interpret, properly, the impulses which actuate medical research at the present time. That the earlier history of medicine is overshadowed by the rapid progress of modern discovery as represented in bacteriology is in the nature of things. But it should not, for that reason, be forgotten that the art of medicine existed before this period and with it much science. ”

“ A medical school is not a scientific school, except just so far as medicine itself is a science. On the natural history side, medicine is a science; on the curative side, chiefly an art. This is implied in Hufeland's aphorism: “The physician must generalize the disease and individualize the patient.”
The coordinated and classified results of empirical observation, in distinction from scientific experiment, have furnished almost all we know about food, the medicine of health, and medicine, the food of sickness. ”

“ The Materia Medica and Botany may very properly be termed the natural history of medicine, as from these branches of science we derive our knowledge of that part of natural history, which more immediately relates to the health giving arts. How worthy of a Physician, a Philosopher or a Gentleman, is the knowledge of the different productions of nature taken in its full extent? I cannot too earnestly recommend this study to young men, to qualify them for every useful profession that is conversant about natural objects, and especially for the study of medicine. ”

“ A spirit of inquiry into these things would be put on foot as the natural tendency of such an institution, and prove the most likely means of bringing to light the knowledge of many useful things, of which we yet remain ignorant, the more readily, as natural history is one of the most essential studies to prepare a person for prosecuting medicine with success, and one of the most distinguished ornaments of a physician and man of letters. ”

“ Thirty years of active practice had made him familiar with disease in its varied forms, and had led him to reject as useless that which was merely speculative in medicine, while it enabled him to speak with authority of all that was valuable in our science. Thoroughly familiar with medical literature, he had also studied disease in the great book of nature, at the bedside in private practice, and in the wards of hospitals. ”

“ With this list before him, the reader will have all the material necessary to understand the declaration that there is no series of men whose names are connected together by any bond in the history of medicine, even as members of the faculty of our oldest medical schools, that represent so much achievement and original investigation in medical matters as the Papal Physicians. ”

“ In spite of this general renaissance of medical learning and the impetus felt by the inspired few during the sixteenth century, it must be said that the general condition of medical science and of those who practised it was not greatly improved. The superstition of the common people and the timidity and indolence of all concerned were about as marked as they have ever been in the history of human error, and the practice of medicine was at least a century behind the applied knowledge of the other arts and sciences. ”

“ If in this brief article, which does not purport to be more than a sketch of the tremendous strides made by medicine in the Nineteenth Century, so much space has been given to the germ theory of disease, it is because the demonstration of the truth of that theory has been absolute, and has constituted the very marrow of almost all the medical progress of the century that has been the outcome of continuous thought and study as opposed to chance discovery. ”

“ The worthy and learned Doctor Lewis is of opinion, "that the medicinal history, or the knowledge of the powers and effects of medicine in the human body, though apparently a most essential branch of the healing art, has been far more incuriously cultivated, and still perhaps continues less cleared from the errors of former ages than any other science." ”

“ A patient suffering from a disease belonging to the last class remains well as long as he continues the use of medicine, but relapses as soon as the treatment is stopped, just as a tottering house collapses on the removal of the props. The physician is advised to refrain from treating a disease which is quite incurable.* [2] The other two classes of diseases should be treated with all possible care and skill. In order to acquire success in his profession, the physician is expected to know both the theoretical and the practical sides of the science of medicine. ”

“ IF it is interesting to know the ideas of the early Indian writers on the theory and practice of medicine, and on other matters appertaining thereto, it will not be less interesting to describe their notions of what a good physician should be like. ”

“ To trace the course of medical science through its phases of doctrines and opinions, from the commencement of the eighteenth century, when a remarkable impulse was given to it, to the time when Dr. Rush terminated his labors, would be an agreeable and instructive task. It would present the account of the contest between the lingering power of scholasticism, monkish credulity, bigotry, and dogmatism, and the teachings of experiment, observation, and reason. [2] In Medicine, as in other sciences, the victory declared itself upon the side of humanity. ”

“ If the Medical Science of India, in its palmy days, has directly or indirectly assisted the early growth of the Medical Science of Europe, it is but fair that the latter should show its gratitude by rendering all possible help to the former, old as it is, and almost dying for want of nourishment. ”

“ Certain ancient writers take exception to the last, but others do not, and expect the physician to employ every one of his five senses, if necessary, in arriving at a correct conclusion regarding the seat and nature of a malady. ”

“ The endeavors of the early physicians to contribute a share to the advancement of medical science are proofs of a thoughtful cultivation of it, and of a laudable desire to render the experience acquired available to others. ”

“ The American Physicians who wish to arrive at the top of their profession are informed that the great Professor Cullen’s Lectures on the Materia Medica, containing the very cream of Physic, are now selling by the said Bell, on Third Street. ”

“ To render these lectures as instructive as possible to students of Physic, the Doctor proposes, in the course of them, to give some useful Observations on Medicine in general, and the proper manner of conducting the study of Physic. The authors to be read in the Materia Medica will be pointed out. The various Substances made use of in Medicine will be reduced under Classes suited to the principal Indications in the cure of Diseases. ”

“ They are, however, taking comfort in the hope that modern medical science, in the course of its onward march, or on reaching its goal of progress, may possibly land its votaries on the very theory which they have at present rejected. ”

“ The presumption against this view arises not only from the fact that, in exact proportion as medical science advances, diseases are proved to be the necessary consequence of physical conditions, but also from many characteristics of unexplained disease which unequivocally prove it to be natural. ”

“ It was entitled A Journal of the Practice of Medicine and Surgery and Pharmacy in the Military Hospitals of France, consisting merely of translations from the French journals of military medicine. The first real American medical journal was the Medical Repository, begun in 1797 and discontinued in 1824.
The present century, now drawing to its close, saw in its earlier half the rise of a large number of American physicians and surgeons who have made their names illustrious for all time by their teachings, their writings, and their invention and originality. ”

“ It can hardly be but that the modes of investigating disease ordinarily followed, labour under some radical errors or defects, else the researches of ages, pursued, as they have been, with exemplary diligence, and, in many splendid instances, by minds of the first order of intellect, must, ere this, have rendered our knowledge of the nature and treatment of disease more certain and more complete. ”

“ Yet we regard clinical medicine as illustrating art, and didactic medicine as representing science. What figure, think you, would the hospital professor make who should come before you with a patient, and be unable to determine with what disease the person was suffering, the organs affected by it, the nature of their functional disturbance, why some functions rather than others were disordered, how these various elements affect the issue of the attack, what that issue will probably be, and finally, what means should be taken to render it favorable? ”

“ The necessity of discriminating between physic and surgery will more manifestly appear when we consider, that they are distinct in their nature, and that either of them is an art, sufficient of itself to engage the industry of one man to cultivate.
The various branches of knowledge which compose the science of medicine, are Anatomy, Materia Medica, Botany, Chymistry, the Theory of medicine, and the practice. ”

“ At a period when pathological research is lending its aid in investigating the appearances of disease in every part of the body, and many nice distinctions in diagnosis are aimed at, which are better calculated for nosological than practical purposes, it seems to me not a little extraordinary, that so few have cultivated that most important branch of medicine, the study of the diseases of children. ”

“ We have all observed the truth of this inspired utterance in the fact that the physicians, as a body, are almost constantly in bed of one disease or another. The wonder is that any of them ever survive the courses of preparatory study. ”

“ While the practice of medicine is so vast and extensive a field, that it has been found necessary to subdivide it amongst physicians, surgeons, accoucheurs, apothecaries, oculists, aurists, dentists, men for the gout and men for the gravel, one for the belly and another for the brain, these reformers seem to regard medical knowledge and medical practice as in a nutshell,—as already perfect and complete. ”

“ Whatever skill we may boast in investigating the nature of a disease, or in understanding the structure of the body, yet without a knowledge of the instruments which are to be used, and of their properties and action upon the body, whereby they produce a change from sickness to health, other knowledge avails little in the cure of diseases.
The Theory of Physic, more commonly termed Medical Institutions, comprehends under it, the important doctrines of Physiology and Pathology. ”

“ DISEASE HAS CERTAIN UNMISTAKABLE SIGNS,
or symptoms, and, by reason of this fact, we have been enabled to originate and perfect a system of determining with the greatest accuracy the nature of chronic diseases without seeing and personally examining our patients. In recognizing diseases without a personal examination of the patient, we claim to possess no miraculous powers. We obtain our knowledge of the patient's disease by the practical application of well-established principles of modern science to the practice of medicine. ”

“ Amongst other symptoms of advancing civilisation proper to this period, was an effort towards the correction of unauthorised medical practice. ‘Persons without knowledge of the science of medicine’ were everywhere practising, ‘to the great and evident hazard of the lives and healths of many of our subjects;’ so declared the king. ”

“ Many centuries had still to elapse before medicine could gain that freedom of action, that rich equipment of tools, and that stock of accumulated knowledge which enable her in these days to make such giant strides forward as we have witnessed during the past twenty or thirty years.
The question will naturally arise, How did the Methodists decide, in the presence of an actual case of illness, which one of these abnormal states (the laxum, the strictum, or the mixtum) was the condition that called for medical treatment? ”

“ The practice of medicine is every year becoming [pg 293] more successful. New and improved methods of treating disease are being discovered and developed, and the conscientious physician will avail himself of all the means, by a knowledge of which he may benefit his fellow-men. ”

“ Among the physicians belonging to the latter half of the thirteenth and the first quarter of the fourteenth century there is one whose proper place in the history of medicine is by no means easy to determine, and who yet played a part of no small importance. ”

“ During the last half century a great change has taken place in the treatment of disease. Medicine has advanced with rapid strides, from the narrow limits of mere empiricism, to the broader realm of rationalism, until to day it comprehends all the elements of an art and a science. ”

“ The application of many, amongst the greatest of men, has hitherto been in-insufficient to clear up all our doubts in medicine. How then can it be supposed that any one, untutored in this art, can by his own natural abilities ever reach the bounds of what is already known in it? The great multiplicity of diseases, which beset the human race, present us with a field too vast and unknown for individuals to cultivate by themselves. ”

“ The old physicians not only believed in its general efficacy as a wonder-worker in disease, but they believed that each malady could be successfully attacked from some special part of the body,—the strategic point which commanded the seat of the morbid affection. ”