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trust leading up to the events of recovery, extended disease, 

 or death. 



34. But we observe that the general tendency under preter- 

 natural affection is to the recovery of health: this has given rise 

 to the " vis medicatrix naturae," which is produced by the same 

 properties naturally as those which determine the same event 

 under preternatural circumstances. It is by the series of causa- 

 tion which constitutes this tendency, that health is invariably re- 

 stored, under the operation of remedies which cure by indirect 

 processes. The immediate effect of remedies is to produce 

 disease: if health arises out of this disease, the properties which 

 determine it are not those of the external, whose invariable pro- 

 perty is to produce disease, but those which decide latent causa- 

 tion in a series, the termination of which is in health. 



35. A particular indication of treatment is to remove a 

 known cause by a known remedy; or, when the cause is not 

 known, to employ a particular agent, which has been found in a 

 sufficient number of instances to be curative, without our being 

 able to assign the manner how, in a disease identified by such 

 symptoms: particular indications are founded upon precise 

 analogies. A general indication of treatment is to employ reme- 

 dies which have been found to succeed in cases analogous in some 

 respects. The chief object of medical inquiry is to obtain a par- 

 ticular, in exchange for a general indication of treatment (and 

 hence the chief advantage of a methodical nosology, by which 

 diseases are classed according to their resemblance) ; whether with 

 regard to that particular indication which is founded on a know- 

 ledge of causes, or to that tendency, which is ascertained, in a 

 sufficient number of instances, to determine the processes of causa- 

 tion towards the recovery of health. The attainment of this 

 object is the business of observation: when this object is not at- 

 tained, or perhaps attainable from defect of experience, or defect 

 of faculties, the treatment must be conducted according to the 

 general indication, the next object of which is, by increasing the 

 knowledge of facts, to multiply or improve the points of analogy. 

 When the indication of cure is no further particular, than that it 

 directs a change in the existing state of disease, we are left to 

 select our remedies from our experience of those which in general 

 accomplish most effectually this end; and, conformably with our 

 experience, in the absence of specific remedies, and remedies 

 directed to remove known causes, the method of changing the 

 condition of disease, with a view before explained the most fre- 

 quently successful, is by the repeated employment of purgative, 

 emetic or nauseating medicines, or by bleedings, issues, &c.; these 

 succeed in this end because their relations are general, or their 

 operation is upon seats which are the centres of many sympathies. 

 V 36. It has been observed that the cure of a disease requires 

 the continuance of remedies which affect or change its condition, 

 and this change is indicated completely to have taken place only 

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