ON THE VAGARIES OF MEDICINE. 225 



ON THE VAGARIES OF MEDICINE. 



BY C. B. HALL, M.B. 



{Read before the Canadian Institute). 



Mr. President, — In the investigation of any scientific question, 

 onr judgment is not to be formed trom the number of its advocates, 

 or the individual opinion of its respective supporters, but from the 

 views emanating from the few experimenters and investigators who are 

 acknowledged lights in their particular sphere. 



You cannot name the whole range of Animated Nature, without 

 alluding to Buffon and Cuvier, calling on the way upon poor Gold- 

 smith. 



In the vast field of Palseontology you recognise an Agassiz, Owen, 

 Buckland, Richardson, and a few others. The Geologist knows 

 Murchison, Ramsay, Lyell and Logan, and remembers with sad 

 reverence the name of Hugh Miller. Numerically, how meagre seem 

 these names to the countless thousands who, in every part of the world, 

 are prosecuting with unyielding ardour these delightful and most use- 

 ful studies, gathering, as it were, particles of matter from every clime, 

 ascending with a Humboldt to the mountain peak, or diving with a 

 Wallich to the bottom of the sea ; but like the streams that pour their 

 ceaseless torrents, never get their full nourishment and strength until 

 they mingle with the ocean's depths. Thus has it ever been with the 

 Science of Medicine — from its earliest record, there have been, through 

 each succeeding era, certain gifted spirits who have ruled its destinies ; 

 culling from every busy theorist such parts as bore the test of experi- 

 ence, and rejecting all others — moulding and fashioning, in their pro- 

 per places, such as fitly joined, and thus keeping together a series of 

 connected truths from the days of Hippocrates to our own. 



The early history shows nothing remarkable, other than the ordin- 

 ary pursuits of learning. We read of each distinguished physician 

 having his class of pupils, and we are told that in two of the schools 

 founded by rival pupils of Pythagoras, human dissection was practised, 

 and whether true or not, leaving the impression that it was upon the 

 living subject. But the first account of any great numbers was in the 

 College of Bagdad, when about the eighth and ninth century there were 

 generally a thousand regular attendants. From this date, as did all 

 learning, the practice of medicine fell into the hands of Monks, who 

 did not add much to its advancement, but retained their hold upon ths 



