SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 



XII. THE WEDDING OF SCIENCE AND NATURAL 

 PHILOSOPHY 



The close of the i8th century was marked by 

 two discoveries which left their imprint on 

 science for a full hundred years. First, the in- 

 troduction of vaccination as a preventive against 

 smallpox, by Jenner, in 1796, stirred up the old 

 bones in medicine, and in the second place, the 

 invention of the Voltaic pile by Volta, in 1799 

 revived the interest in electricity. Jenner's idea 

 showed that the futility of the prevailing symp- 

 tomatic treatment of diseases was being realized, 

 but his method was itself still a fight against 

 symptoms, instead of a removal of causes. It 

 must be admitted, that it was the best that could 

 be done under the prevailing historical conditions, 

 for capitalism limits all human activity to more 

 or less symptomatic methods. One hundred 

 years of practical experience with Vaccination 

 and similar preventive methods have demon- 

 strated, that the scientific way to treat diseases is 

 to remove their causes, and this understanding 

 found its logical application in the revolutionary 

 method of the class-conscious proletariat. 



Volta's invention was the forerunner of great 



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