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1 832 Medicine as a Science and as a Trade. 63 1 



brightest genius can effect in medicine, when unassisted by observation j 

 his voluminous comments on Hippocrates are the only things to recom- 

 mend him to our notice. 



The advancement of medicine, as a science, was for a long time 

 checked by the night of barbarism which, under the name of the middle 

 ages, overhung Europe. Exiled to Arabia, it there remained stationary, 

 the comments of Galen serving as oracles to the Arabians. If the im- 

 proved system of the present day incline us to undervalue the discoveries 

 of the ancients, a comparative view of the relative conditions of both ages 

 will assign to each their proper place. In the fourteenth and fifteenth 

 centuries, the star of science burst forth from the mists of barbarism 

 under which it lay obscured so long, and physicians, released from the 

 absurd prejudices of former ages, were enabled to examine on the dead 

 the morbid effects of disease. This period was to medicine as the dawn 

 of a new world. Animated with a laudable zeal, physicians boldly ven- 

 tured forth into that fertile field, which lay before them with the accumu- 

 lated treasures of ages, but hidden beneath the rubbish of ignorance, and 

 the world have long since shared the benefits of their labours. 



Nearer our own time, the immortal Morgagni, availing himself of the 

 discoveries of other ages, collected observations of a new kind, and esta- 

 blished pathological anatomy j and the chaos of facts, scattered and in- 

 terlaced as they were, assumed under the hands of philosophy a certain 

 order. System succeeded system, each bearing the stamp of the epoch 

 which gave it birth. Science in general, but medicine in particular, 

 assumed in the eighteenth century a new life. The physiology of the day 

 acquired additional interest, and under the guidance of Bichat a new ana- 

 tomy was established. Nosology, too, was under the hands of Pinel,who 

 endeavoured to introduce into medicine the analytic and experimental 

 method adopted in the other sciences, freed from the errors with which it 

 was overlaid. The diagnosis of disease also received additional light 

 from the labours of Corvisart, who followed in the tracks of Dehaen and 

 Stoll. 



If any thing were wanted to prove the uncertainty of medicine as a 

 science, we need but look back on the various systems which have from 

 time to time prevailed, we have the stricture and laxum of Thernison, 

 the humoralism of Galen, the traces of which may be found in Hippo- 

 crates, the Charlatanism and superstition of the middle ages, the chemical 

 theories of Sylvius, the archeism of Nanhelmont, the anima of Stoll, the 

 mechanical and mathematical explications of Boerhaave, Hoffman, &c. j 

 the vitalism of Montpellier, the solidism of Cullen, the system of Brown, 

 resting on the excess or default of excitability, each of which have " fret- 

 ted their hour," and passed away, to be revived, perhaps, by succeeding 

 ages. Amongst the doctrines of the present day, that of Broussais stands 

 conspicuous at least on the continent; and, without going the whole 

 length of its founder, we must confess, that there are many points in it 

 of the deepest interest to the scientific physician j its localisation of dis- 

 ease, though perhaps too much insisted on by Broussais, still throws 

 considerable light on the simplification of treatment. Its influence on 

 the medical mind of this country is not likely to be great; for the super- 

 structure of medical knowledge here, based on the doctrines of our own 

 schools, clings, often with the faith of a fanatic, to doctrines which have 

 little else than the rust of ages to recommend them. If it be asked what 



