MODERN METHODS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE 31 



Opposed the ontologic conception of disease, but this led him also 

 to oppose the proof given that certain diseases which he regarded 

 as due to the action of general causes, were due to parasites. Virchow 

 appeared in medicine at the time when Natur-philosophie, though 

 seemingly dominant in Germany, was really far advanced in decline, 

 and his mighty blows were delivered against a feeble body. It was 

 the knowledge of French and English medicine, where the advance 

 had been by investigation, the increase in knowledge in all the nat- 

 ural sciences giving too much to be covered by any system, which 

 gave the death-blow to this period of speculation in medicine. 



It is possible now to see the effect of this period of unrestricted 

 imagination on medicine. It is true that it inhibited progress, by 

 restricting observation and experiment, that it substituted theory 

 for knowledge, and found satisfaction in empty phrases and jug- 

 gling with terms. But it gave birth to fruitful stimulation, and 

 opened wide and distant vistas which science has utilized. The 

 excitation of the imagination, provided the imagination be con- 

 trolled and theories be recognized as theories, is most useful in 

 science. Without the imagination, without the tendency to seek 

 for explanations of phenomena, there would be no progress. There 

 is only danger in the failure to recognize the true relation of the 

 hypothesis and in attempting to progress by adding hypotheses. 

 There was but little progress in the period, but progress resulted 

 from the stimulation which the period gave, and from the reaction 

 which followed it. Although as playing a great part and affecting 

 an entire people, such a movement has passed and will probably 

 not return, we constantly see the same tendencies. The medical 

 systems, often connected with religion, which are constantly arising 

 in all countries, and especially in this, the attempt to form theories 

 in explanation of the unknown, are due to the same mental states 

 which produced the Natur-philosophie. They arise, have a ready 

 following composed of birds of passage resting temporarily on any 

 bough provided, and disappear without making any real impression. 

 How completely the period of the Natur-philosophie has passed in 

 the country of the creation is seen in the history of medicine in 

 Germany for the last fifty years. By the adoption of scientific 

 methods, by the fostering influence of the government, which pro- 

 vided facilities for research, and by a system which gave reward for 

 investigation, Germany has become the leader of the world. 



At no time in the world's history was there such rapid advance, 

 such a complete transformation in methods, such an array of great 

 men in all the departments of medicine as in France, following the 

 Revolution. The foremost of the men in this school in France was 

 Bichat. He undertook the gigantic task of creating for medicine 

 a solid foundation derived from the study of objects and from ex- 



