36 Dr. Mac Culloch on Fevers. 



we will, to avoid this adduced inconsistency, confine our- 

 selves to analysis, as far as this is possible. That our remarks 

 however had not offended the author himself, we must pre- 

 sume ; since he has, since that, favoured us with a third Essay 

 on the same subject. 



This work is divided in such a manner that the first is 

 allotted to the proper fevers produced by Malaria, or de- 

 pendent on what are commonly called Remittent and Inter- 

 mittent ; while the last treats of those painful diseases of 

 Nerves, which physicians have lately distinguished by the 

 term Neuralgia, and which are popularly well known 

 through that of Tic-douloureux. That both sets of diseases 

 were much in want of elucidation is now most apparent : 

 and if, as has occurred to us in conversation, our author is 

 accused of having invented disorders before unknown, we 

 are among those who would be delighted to find this true, 

 and that every disorder here described was not the sad and 

 painful reality which we know it to be. So far from judg- 

 ing thus, we think that this writer has conferred a most essen- 

 tial benefit on mankind as well as on his own profession, — by 

 investigating, describing, and classifying under certain 

 general and leading principles, what was an entire mass of 

 neglect and obscurity as far as theory is concerned, as, in 

 practice, it was a chaos of empiricism and error : nor do we 

 hesitate in saying that it is the most important contribution 

 which has yet been made to medical science. 



And the entire subject has been treated in a scientific man- 

 ner, as far as the wretched state of medical facts and observa- 

 tions permitted it ; the very attempt being a new one, as far 

 as the extent of our medical reading allows us to judge. Our 

 author denies that medicine is incapable of being treated in this 

 manner, and accuses its cultivators of those defects which they 

 choose to consider as inherent in the subject itself — holding 

 out hopes that, in proper hands, it may yet be rescued from 

 the disgraceful condition which, as a science, it exhibits. It 

 is justly remarked, that while all the physical sciences have, 

 in modern times, and through the influence of the Baconian 

 philosophy, been investigated or rebuilt on the solid founda- 

 tions which this system furnishes. Medicine alone has been 

 indolently contented with proceeding in the manner in which 

 it did in the dark ages; attempting, through words and 

 phrases, to build on the sandy foundation of the very infancy 

 of medical knowledge. And when he says that he has 

 attempted to apply to the object before him the same pro- 

 cesses which he has been accustomed to use in the other 



