218 ON THOUGHT IN MEDICINE. 



which since that time has almost been entirely aban- 

 doned. Therapeutics became still more impoverished as 

 the younger and more critical generation grew up, and 

 tested the assumptions of that which was considered to 

 be scientific. Among the younger generation were 

 many who, in despair as to their science, had almost 

 entirely given up therapeutics, or on principle had 

 grasped at an empiricism such as Rademacher then 

 taught, which regarded any expectation of a scientific 

 explanation as a vain hope. 



What we learned at that time were only the ruins 

 of the older dogmatism, but their doubtful features 

 soon manifested themselves. 



The vitalistic physician considered that the essen- 

 tial part of the vital processes did not depend upon 

 natural forces, which, doing their work with blind 

 necessity and according to a fixed law, determined the 

 result. What these forces could do appeared quite 

 subordinate, and scarcely worthy of a minute study. 

 He thought that he had to deal with a soul-like being, 

 to which a thinker, a philosopher, and an intelligent 

 man must be opposed. May I elucidate this by a few 

 outlines ? 



At this time auscultation and percussion of the 

 organs of the chest were being regularly practised in 

 the clinical wards. But I have often heard it main- 

 tained that they were a coarse mechanical means of 



