DEPARTMENT XVII MEDICINE 



(Hall 1, September 20, 4.15 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: DR. WILLIAM OSLER, Johns Hopkins University. 

 SPEAKERS: DR. WILLIAM T. COUNCILMAN, Harvard University. 

 DR. FRANK BILLINGS, University of Chicago. 



THE MODERN CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS OF 

 MEDICAL SCIENCE 



BY WILLIAM THOMAS COUNCILMAN 



[William Thomas Councilman, Shattuck Professor of Pathological Anatomy, Har- 

 vard University Medical School, b. Maryland, 1854. M.D. Maryland Univer- 

 sity; A.M. (Hon.) Harvard and Johns Hopkins University. Graduate student 

 of Johns Hopkins University; special course, Vienna, Leipzig, Prague, Strass- 

 burg. Assistant in Physiology and Anatomy, Associate Professor, Johns 

 Hopkins University. Member of Association of American Physicians, National 

 Academy of Science. Author of medical works on Diphtheria; Small-Pox; and 

 Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis.] 



AN acquaintance with present conditions in medicine and with 

 the literature of the past makes us aware of a great change both in 

 the conceptions of medicine and in the methods by which the con- 

 ceptions are reached. There has been a great increase of knowledge 

 brought about by investigation and experiment, a realization of 

 the value of knowledge and its acceptance and utilization. Medi- 

 cine has severed all connection with speculative philosophy and 

 taken its true place among the natural sciences. It has been brought 

 into closer accord with other sciences than ever before and has 

 accepted the methods of science. There are no systems, no schools, 

 no paramount authority; no hypothesis is so firmly held that it 

 is not instantly rejected when it fails to accord with new knowledge. 

 Progress in medicine has gone hand in hand with progress in all 

 departments of knowledge. 



Medicine has for its problems the cause, the nature, the preven- 

 tion, the cure of disease. It is a branch of biology in that in all of 

 its relations it has to do with living things. The ontologic concep- 

 tion of disease as a thing differing from and entering into the organ- 

 ism is no longer held, but disease is regarded as a condition of living 

 things in which there is disharmony of function. The phenomena 

 of life depend upon actions exerted upon living tissue by its sur- 

 roundings. When the action exerted leads to forms of activity 

 which differ from and fail to come into accord with the usual activ- 

 ities, whatever produces such an action is a cause of disease. These 



