AUTHOR'S PREFACE. v ij 



they formerly held, as I am afraid openly to acknowledge whatever 

 truth there is in their views and observations. In fact, I find not 

 only that the physicians of antiquity and the middle ages had not 

 in all cases their senses shackled by traditional prejudices, but more 

 than this, that among the people common sense has clung to certain 

 truths, notwithstanding the criticism of the learned had pronounced 

 them overthrown. What should hinder me from avowing that the 

 criticism of the learned has not always proved correct, that system 

 has not always been nature, and that a false interpretation does not 

 impair the correctness of the fact ? Why should I not retain good 

 expressions, or restore them, even though false ideas have been 

 attached to them ? My experience constrains me to regard the term 

 fluxion (active congestion Wallung)* as preferable to that of con- 

 gestion ; I cannot help allowing inflammation to be a definite form 

 in which pathological processes display themselves, although I am 

 unable to admit its claims to be regarded as an entity ; and I must 

 needs, in spite of the decided counter-statements of many investi- 

 gators, maintain tubercle to be a miliary granule, and epithelioma a 

 heteroplastic, malignant new-formation (cancroid). 



Perhaps it is now-a-days a merit to recognise historic rights, for it 

 is indeed astonishing with what levity those very men, who herald 

 forth every trifle, which they have stumbled upon, as a discovery, 

 pass their judgment upon their predecessors. I uphold my own 

 rights, and therefore I also recognize the rights of others. This is 

 the principle I act upon in life, in politics and in science. We owe 

 it to ourselves to defend our rights, for it is the only guarantee for 

 our individual development, and for our influence upon the commu- 

 nity at large. Such a defence is no act of vain ambition, and it 

 involves no renunciation of purely scientific aims. For, if we would 

 serve science, we must extend her limits, not only as far as our own 

 knowledge is concerned, but in the estimation of others. Now this 

 estimation depends in a great measure upon the acknowledgment 

 accorded to our rights, upon the confidence placed in our investiga- 

 tions, by others ; and this is the reason why I uphold my rights. 



In a science so directly practical as that of medicine, and at a time 



* See the Author's 'Handbuch der speciellen Path, und Therapie,' Vol. I. p. 111. 



