214 ON THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES OF 



Nor is the elucidation of the pathology of an affection 

 practically useless, even where a tolerably successful 

 plan of treatment has already been derived from a 

 continued course of experimental observations on the 

 diseased body, or, in other words, from empirical prac- 

 tice. For a knowledge of the essential nature and 

 mode of action of the immediate causes of a disease, 

 by exhibiting the circumstances which determine its 

 varied degrees of intensity, naturally indicates cor- 

 responding modifications in its treatment, and thus 

 regulates, by fixed and definite principles, points of 

 practice which would otherwise be left wholly to the 

 judgment of an individual. The advancement of 

 pathology, therefore, not only tends directly to the 

 extension and elevation of therapeutical science, by 

 suggesting new measures for the prevention and 

 removal of disease, but also enables us to command 

 greater precision in the use of known remedies, by 

 reducing into constant and intelligible laws the 

 vague impressions and conflicting results of indi- 

 vidual experience. 



The measures found most successful in the treat- 

 ment of inflammation are in such exact accordance 

 with my conclusions as to the essential nature of 

 that disease, that in a former part of this communi- 

 cation I could not avoid deducing, from their very 

 efficacy, an argument in favour of the pathological 

 doctrine there advanced, lint, though experience 

 has thus anticipated the results of reasoning, it may 

 not be altogether uninteresting or uninstructive to 

 present here a brief outline of the principles of treat- 

 ment which are suggested by the foregoing views of 



