234 MEDICINE 



sound she uttered by joining letter to letter, 

 adding word to word, and line to line at last 

 spell out her meaning and so reach that rank which 

 the great master of induction tells us man may 

 legitimately hope to attain, namely, that of her 

 interpreter." Here in fine terms we have an 

 epitome of what the method of the Observer should 

 be. If progress with such ideals is not rapid it 

 must be due to limitations in the method. 



The high ideal expressed in the words of Jenner 

 just quoted was attained by many of his leading 

 contemporaries, and medicine certainly made pro- 

 gress in their hands. If we consider closely, how- 

 ever, what was being done, we find it was chiefly on 

 the negative lines of getting rid of unsound dogma. 

 Careful clinical work, checked by morphological 

 anatomy, was removing the fanciful from medical 

 views and practice. New and significant know- 

 ledge came; but it came very slowly. 



In a country rich in gold observant wayfarers 

 may find nuggets on their path, but only systematic 

 mining can provide the currency of nations. In 

 the search for natural knowledge the Experimen- 

 talists are the miners. Jenner felt the ambiguity 

 of nature's chance remarks, but saw apparently 

 no remedy save in the laborious recording of her 

 spontaneous utterings and a painful effort at 

 interpretation. Nature, however, can be taken 

 into the witness box and directly questioned; 

 moreover the questions can be so put that there 



