ON THOUGHT IN MEDICINE. 229 



ing their thoughts before the public before they have 

 tested them in all directions, solved all doubts, and 

 have firmly established the proof, these are at a decided 

 disadvantage. To settle the present kind of questions 

 of priority, only by the date of their first publication, 

 and without considering the ripeness of the research, 

 has seriously favoured this mischief. 



In the * type case ' of the printer all the wisdom of 

 the world is contained which has been or can be dis- 

 covered ; it is only requisite to know how the letters 

 are to be arranged. So also, in the hundreds of books 

 and pamphlets which are every year published about 

 ether, the structure of atoms, the theory of perception, 

 as well as on the nature of the asthenic fever and 

 carcinoma, all the most refined shades of possible hy- 

 potheses are exhausted, and among these there must 

 necessarily be many fragments of the correct theory. 

 But who knows how to find them ? 



I insist upon this in order to make clear to you that 

 all this literature, of untried and unconfirmed hypo- 

 theses, has no value in the progress of science. On the 

 contrary, the few sound ideas which they may contain 

 are concealed by the rubbish of the rest ; and one who 

 wants to publish something really new facts sees 

 himself open to the danger of countless claims of 

 priority, unless he is prepared to waste time and power 

 in reading beforehand a quantity of absolutely useless 



