Medical literature

“ So, likewise, are there numerous, acute diseases of a milder character which are easily and unmistakably recognized without the possession of great medical knowledge, and which readily yield to plain, simple, medical treatment which is within the ready reach of all who strive to acquaint themselves with the rudiments of medical science. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every malady is accompanied by its characteristic indications, some of which are diagnostic, i.e., they particularize the affection and distinguish it from all others.
Medical diagnosis is both a science and an art; a science when the causes and symptoms of a disease are understood, and an art when this knowledge can be applied to determine its location and exact nature. Science presents the general principles of practice; art detects among the characteristic symptoms the differential signs, and applies the remedy. ”

“ The more nearly the treatment of diseases can be brought throughout to this degree of accuracy, the more scientific will the art of physic become, and the tendency of all medical observation and of all medical writing, should be to advance in this direction. ”

“ It involves a continuance of the mischievous ideal of medical practice of the past, a conception still held by a large portion of the public to its own detriment, that a hasty inquiry, a perfunctory examination, and a bottle of medicine, represent the best that scientific medicine can offer a patient. ”

“ The latter is a large medical dictionary, containing, in a brief form, not only explanations from all departments of medicine, but also their manifold applications. In connection with every disease is given an explanation of its cause, its symptoms, and the method of its cure, along with even the ordinary prescriptions. This was for me a real treasure. I studied the book thoroughly, and believed myself to be master of the science of medicine, and a complete physician. ”

“ A vast variety of the approaches known to medical science has been explored to find better methods of treatment and prevention of major diseases, particularly heart diseases, cancer, and mental illness. ”

“ Believing that the diffusion of knowledge for the prevention of disease is quite as noble a work as the alleviation of physical suffering by medical skill, we have devoted a large portion of this volume to the subjects of physiology and hygiene. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Medicine was the foster-mother of chemistry, because it has to do with the preparation of drugs and the detection of poisons; of botany, because it enabled the physician to recognize medicinal herbs; of comparative anatomy and physiology, because the man who studied human anatomy and physiology for purely medical purposes was led to extend his studies to the rest of the animal world. ”

“ 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? ”

“ This state of things has been occasioned by the circumstance that medical practitioners have often been more given to the formation of theories upon the nature of disease and the mode of its treatment, than to that careful observation and patient accumulation of facts, by which, in other sciences, the phenomena of nature have been unravelled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is by the recognition of this true method of biological research and by the generous support of physiologists who honestly seek for truth, even when opposed by temporary fashions of medical opinion, that medicine will become a science. ”

“ Physiology prepared the way for Pathology, and the Principles and Practice of Medicine placed the experience of the whole world under contribution. Therapeutics claimed for her use the vegetable, mineral and animal kingdoms, the collateral sciences became cultivated as auxiliaries, and Botany, Mineralogy, Chemistry and Zoölogy became branches of medical study ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Only through extensive experience can the medical practitioner become expert at detecting and successfully meeting, by rational scientific and carefully adapted treatment, the many phases and complications incident to the different forms and stages of this very prevalent malady. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Physiology gives us the clearest light in the cure of diseases, which is the grand object of all our inquiries in medicine. The study of it is most entertaining, and engages our closest attention from the many curious subjects with which it abounds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Other eminent medical men have given utterance to these aphorisms: “The science of medicine is founded on conjecture and improved by murder;” “Mercury has made more cripples than war;” “Ninety-nine medical facts are medical lies;” “Every dose of medicine is a blind experiment;” “The older physicians grow the more sceptical they become of the virtues of their own medicines.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ What is it to him that you can localize and name by some uncouth term the disease which you could not prevent and which you cannot cure? An old woman who knows how to make a poultice and how to put it on, and does it tuto, eito, jucunde, just when and where it is wanted, is better,—a thousand times better in many cases,—than a staring pathologist, who explores and thumps and doubts and guesses, and tells his patient he will be better tomorrow, and so goes home to tumble his books over and make out a diagnosis. ”

“ Few persons have contributed more abundantly to the establishment of the true principles of surgery and medical science in those cases which require that minute criticism of the symptoms of disease, upon the proper knowledge and study of which the perfection of medical art must mainly depend. ”

“ Physiology, including pathology—the first taking cognizance of all the vital functions of organized beings, the second of the disturbance of those functions by disease—is far from maintaining its place in the general march of physical science.—Saturday Review.
The Element of Physic in Medical Practice.
The Element of Physic in Medical Practice becomes constantly more simple. Our drugs are fewer and less complicated. ”

“ Then, again, when I attend our medical associations and find the faculty discarding" methods and remedies which were once pronounced 'wonderful discoveries,' and substituting something new or something that had years ago been discarded, I become disgusted, and declare there is no science in materia medica; that it is but 'a bundle of speculative theories,' as Mrs. Eddy puts it in her startling chapter on 'Medicine.'" [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 149.] ”

“ The Hippocratic writings constitute a systematic and comprehensive presentation of medical and surgical observations, doctrines and practise. Especial attention was given to prognosis, dietetics and meteorological conditions as causes 'of disease; and the beginning was presented of the humoral pathology, which for ages dominated medicine. ”

“ And it is to the accuracy with which this system has endowed us that we owe our almost world-wide reputation for the skillful treatment of all lingering, or chronic, affections. This system of practice, with the marvelous success which has been attained through it, demonstrates the fact that diseases display certain phenomena, which, being subjected to scientific analysis, furnish abundant and unmistakable data to guide the judgment of the skillful practitioner aright in determining the nature of diseased conditions. ”

“ This edition appears in a thoroughly revised and much enlarged form; to what extent, may be judged by the fact that chapters on The Physician, Surgery, Physiology, Anatomy and Pharmacy have been added, together with many allusions to the other medical subjects, making an increase of over four hundred quotations. It has been impossible to resist the temptation of adding a few medical thoughts from other authors, which will be found under their appropriate heads. ”

“ This universal and acknowledged rule is Pathology, the science which unfolds and exhibits the nature and character of disease, and "dictates the maxims of rational practice." It is the foundation and only base of rational medicine, which proceeds on the assumption that the nature and character of disease is fully known and appreciated. This knowledge is not only rational, but indispensable, in order to understand and apply the principles which ought to govern in the medication and cure of disease. ”

“ The timid lady and nervous young man write just as they feel; and one important reason why we have had such superior success in treating intricate and delicate diseases, is because we have obtained such true and natural statements of the cases from these letters, many of which are perfect pen-pictures of disease. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So in natural science and in art the mind must, first of all, distinctly apprehend the thing that is to be studied, and after that its relation to associated things. So in medicine the only safe clue to an accurate conception of disease is through a minute study of all its forms and relations and the modifications they undergo through internal and external influences, and, next to those the variations imposed upon them by hygienic and therapeutic measures, i. e., by treatment. ”

“ MEDICINE.—The science of medicine, as we understand it, has for its province the treatment of disease. The word “medicine” (Lat. medicina: sc. ars, art of healing, from mederi, to heal) may be used very widely, to include Pathology (q.v.) , the theory of the causation of disease, or, very narrowly, to mean only the drug or form of remedy prescribed by the physician—this being more properly the subject of Therapeutics (q.v.) ”