394 MEDICAL THEORIES. 



symptoms known to accompany extensive inflamma- 

 tory action, are associated with a general state of the 

 system which can hardly be made lower than it is 

 without great risk to life. Nevertheless, with such 

 confidence was the truth of the old combustion theory 

 of inflammation believed in and taught, that the efforts 

 to quench the fire or to moderate its intensity so 

 absorbed the attention of the physician, that there was 

 danger of losing the patient ere efforts employed to 

 check the disease could prove successful. 



Oftentimes in medicine and in science have facts 

 been explained by theories which had never been 

 deduced from the results of experiment ; and when 

 new facts opposed to a theory had been demonstrated, 

 men have sometimes said the facts could not be true, 

 and have persisted in acting upon the theory ; at the 

 same time appealing to the dogmas upon which the 

 theory was based to confirm them in the action which, 

 it is to be feared, they had already determined to 

 take. In days long gone by, stimulants had from 

 time to time been given by intelligent doctors, in low 

 conditions of the system, accompanied by local in- 

 flammations ; and in many cases when the patient 

 felt better after taking wine, practitioners in olden 

 time have even allowed a repetition of the practice, 

 although they felt conscious it was 'against what were 

 regarded by them as sound principles of treatment 

 which they dared not doubt. The favourable action 

 was ingeniously explained by the discovery of some 



