NINETEENTH-CENTURY MEDICINE 



our century acquired the right to be considered a ration- 

 al science. Laennec's efforts cost him his life, for he 

 died in 1826 of a lung disease acquired in the course of 

 his hospital practice ; but even before this his fame was 

 universal, and the value of his method had been recog- 

 nized all over the world. Not long after, in 1828, yet 

 another French physician, Piorry, perfected the meth- 

 od of percussion by introducing the custom of tapping, 

 not the chest directly, but the finger or a small metal or 

 hard-rubber plate held against the chest mediate per- 

 cussion, in short. This perfected the methods of phys- 

 ical diagnosis of diseases of the chest in all essentials ; 

 and from that day till this percussion and auscultation 

 have held an unquestioned place in the regular arma- 

 mentarium of the physician. 



Coupled with the new method of physical diagnosis 

 in the effort to substitute knowledge for guess-work 

 came the studies of the experimental physiologists 

 in particular, Marshall Hall in England and Frangois 

 Magendie in France; and the joint efforts of these 

 various workers led presently to the abandonment of 

 those severe and often irrational depletive methods 

 blood-letting and the like that had previously dom- 

 inated medical practice. To this end also the "sta- 

 tistical method, " introduced by Louis and his follow- 

 ers, largely contributed; and by the close of the first 

 third of our century the idea was gaining ground that 

 the province of therapeutics is to aid nature in com- 

 bating disease, and that this may often be accom- 

 plished better by simple means than by the heroic 

 measures hitherto thought necessary. In a word, 

 scientific empiricism was beginning to gain a hearing 



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