534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



medical lives ; for the whole art and science of medicine must be 

 founded on accurate observation. All careful students of medi- 

 cine should be good and accurate note-takers ; the practice of 

 sketching and making diagrams of the things you are observing 

 is a very valuable one to cultivate. In taking notes on your cases 

 acquire the habit of putting your observations on paper while 

 you have the patient before you ; compare the diseased or injured 

 part with the corresponding healthy part; and if both similar 

 parts are affected, you must compare them with what you have 

 learned to consider as a healthy ideal. If records are not made at 

 the time they lose somewhat of their value, even if they are made 

 within a few hours after the appearances observed have been de- 

 scribed ; but if left days or weeks and I know this is sometimes 

 the case the imagination is left to fill in the details ; and should 

 they be left for a much longer period, it is perfectly astonishing 

 what may not be described as facts, especially if the writer is 

 anxious to make the accounts read well. I believe this is the 

 reason why there is so much doubt about so-called facts ; a good 

 many of them are not facts at all, but merely expressions of a 

 very fertile imagination. There is more truth in some of the 

 stories of the Arabian Nights. A certain part of what has been 

 called the new criticism of some ancient writings and records 

 consists in trying to ascertain how soon after seeing these events 

 did the eyewitness write the records. Of course a good deal of 

 the value of these records depends upon the decision of such a 

 point how much and how little has the imagination taken part 

 in the evolution of these so-called records of well-authenticated 

 facts ? Then, in describing your cases, do not use language that 

 lends itself to exaggeration. Whenever you can put down actual 

 measurements and actual figures it is much better to do so. 



According to the statistical tables of some operations and new 

 methods of treatment one finds all the cases, or a large majority 

 of them, classed under the heading of " cured/' This is a very 

 unfortunate word, for it appears to have a variety of meanings ; 

 and what one person understands as a cure certainly would not 

 come up to the standard of another. I often wonder if the notes 

 of some of the failures have not been lost or if the cases of failure 

 have not been removed, because, for some reason or other, they 

 do not quite come within the category of the title-heading selected 

 for these tables. We do not find many statistical tables of fail- 

 ures. When one reads these accounts one wonders if they were 

 written for the purpose of finding out the truth, or was there 

 some other motive ? Macaulay, in his essay on Gladstone on 

 Church and State, has a passage which I think I may aptly quote 

 here : " It seems quite clear that an inquirer who has no wish 

 except to know the truth is more likely to arrive at the truth 



