MODERN METHODS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE 25 



much truth as there is natural science in it. Nature seems to de- 

 light in refuting all conceptions of her processes which are not 

 based on sense-impressions. 



The progress of knowledge by these two methods has been the 

 same in all sciences as in medicine, but it is more easily followed in 

 medicine, because of the important place which its subject disease 

 has always held in the thoughts of man. It is possible to trace the 

 past in the conditions of the present. In the earliest period of medi- 

 cine, before there were any records of the study of the phenomena 

 of disease and any differentiation of disease, disease was regarded 

 as the visitation of the wrath of offended deities, and the surest 

 mode of its relief the propitiation of the deity by supplications and 

 offerings. Such beliefs are still held, or at least practices which 

 were based on such beliefs are continued. In almost all countries 

 at the present time it is the custom to offer supplications that the 

 disease of an important individual may be removed by divine inter- 

 position. It is true that such prayers may be a part of past tradi- 

 tion or a part of the discipline of a religious system, but undoubt- 

 edly their efficacy is believed in by many. Disease has played an 

 important role in systems of religions, and the teachers of the sys- 

 tem who had most fully embraced its tenets were supposed to be 

 the most efficacious in removing disease. Christian Science is only 

 one of a great number of religious systems held to-day in which 

 treatment of disease forms an important part of the cult. In the 

 past there have been systems of medicine which gave explanations 

 of all phenomena, and the system being perfect the phenomena 

 were removed from further investigation. Homeopathy is the most 

 important survivor of such speculative systems. 



Speculation has undoubtedly been fostered by systems of religion 

 founded on what was accepted as supernatural revelation. Reve- 

 lation which sufficed for the explanation of phenomena at the time 

 when it was given becomes firmly and inseparably blended with 

 speculation when it must be expanded to meet a wider range of 

 phenomena. Knowledge cannot be diffused, accepted, or utilized 

 beyond the general development of culture. Any general influence 

 which can be exerted on the people, turning thought into neAv 

 directions, giving new subjects arid proper methods, is of great 

 importance. Darwin, by substituting a rational and easily com- 

 prehended hypothesis, based on observation and experiment, with 

 a clear statement of the method by which the hypothesis was 

 formed, for a revelation which did not suffice and which could not 

 be twisted to conform to what was of general and accepted know- 

 ledge, exerted probably the greatest influence on general scientific 

 progress in the last century. Medicine, like all other sciences, has 

 felt its vivifying influence. 



