In one part of his paper he defends and justifies his methods in the 

 following words: "Moreover, it is not to mere clinical experience 

 that we must look for a revelation of the laws of disease. The laws of 

 chemistry were not discovered in blazing fires or crumbling rocks; 

 the laws of hydrostatics and hydraidics were not revealed in torrents, 

 tides, or ocean currents, nor those of pneumatics and electricity in 

 ^vinds, whirlwinds, and thunderstorms; much less coidd it be ration- 

 ally expected that the laws of pathology should be discovered amid 

 the much greater complexity and more multitudinous conflicts of 

 elements presented to the physician at the bedside of a diseased or 

 dying patient. It is in the laboratory, and by artifically contrived ex- 

 periments that the clue has ever been spun and the torch lighted to 

 guide through the labyrinths which hide the arcana of nature." 



By means of "artificially contrived experiments" we are today en- 

 abled to demonstrate in detail how drugs act on the various organs 

 of the body and what is their immediate, specific action on the parts 

 of a compound mechanism like the circulatory apparatus. Thus we 

 teach the student of our day the method by which is analyzed the 

 action of a drug on the heart and arteries, on the vasomotor, cardio- 

 inhibitory and respiratory centers, on the terminals of the vagus, on 

 the spinal cord and brain, on the intestines, the uterus, the salivary 

 and other glands, the iris, ciliary body, etc. Conceptions familiar to 

 the therapeutician are thus resolved into their elements and made 

 accessible to the beginner. 



The empiricist may perhaps assert that an experimental demonstra- 

 tion and analysis of the manner in which atropin, for example, causes 

 dilation of the pupil is of little service to him, that the clinical fact 

 is all-sufficient. A physician of this practical turn of mind may long 

 use ^vith safety his corrosive sublimate, his ether, his salicylic acid, 

 his homatropin, eserin, and other drugs; but, sooner or later, if he 

 is an observing man, he will find himeslf confronted by doubtful and 

 obscure questions which directly concern the welfare of his patient, 

 questions that can only be cleared up with the help of the "artificially 

 contrived experiment." No branch of practical medicine can afford 

 to neglect the study of the principles and methods of pharmacology. 

 For, like other branches of experimental science, it teaches conserva- 

 tism by pointing out how vastly complex are the phenomena of the 

 action of drugs and sho^ving how little is clearly understood aside 

 from the grosser and visible changes which follow upon their ad 

 ministration. The dogmatic use, in symptomatic treatment, of cardiac 

 stimidants, depressants, antipyretics, and innumerable other remedies 



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