83 



SCIENCE. 



The reason can easily be comprehended. While we 

 are familiar with the natural causes of maladies we rre 

 still in want of a well organized acquaintance with their 

 natural preceding incidents. By taking an unprejudiced 

 view of the case, we can easily see that even Hippocrates 

 had recourse to nature in curing diseases. Physics, he 

 designated the basis upon which the healing incidents 

 rested, and there can be no doubt that this term was the 

 same to him as is to us the tautological ep the', of the 

 "physical nature of man." If you reid attentively the 

 part in which he mentions th ; s, you can no longer doubt 

 that he had the whole question of man's bod ly forma- 

 tion foremost in his mind. Taken in this sense, the 

 healing powers belonging to the body itself must conse- 

 quently be natural or physical organic forces. 



The idea, however, was in a certain measure a pro- 

 phetic one. Knowledge at that time was not sufficiently 

 extensive to admit of, or to supply any explanation of it. 

 Even the most favorable and clear sighted observations 

 relating to natural incidents in healing, led to nothing 

 more than a superficial, and to a certain extent, brief 

 conception of the events. This sufficed certainly to es- 

 tablish their situation, and also furnished abundant 

 cause for application of remedies at certain times 

 and on particular parts of the body, remedies which 

 seemed adapted to facilitate the natural course of events, 

 to favor it, or in case it remained concealed, to bring it 

 forward. 



There have been numerous attempts to explain all this. 

 One school after the other produced its dcctnnes, but 

 each one of them was based upon imr erfect or voluntary 

 suppositions. Each new step of progress in the knowl- 

 edge of various occurrences which take place in the 

 human organization overthrew the opinion under con- 

 sideration and produced another. Of course this did 

 not conduce to strengthen faith in regard to scientific 

 medicine. 



It was only during the period of spiritual inactivi'.y 

 when nature's perceptions remained for a long time un- 

 changed as in the early portion of the middle ages, and 

 the Church as well as Medicine adooted natural science 

 in its system of teaching, that medical doctrines gained 

 for themselves the recognized character of stability. It 

 was then that the physician attained aristocratic honors. 

 However secondary schools then aro?e and dilettanteism 

 pushed forward into existence. So it was at the time of 

 the German revolution, the French revolution and the 

 formation of a new German kingdom. 



At no peiiod whatever has mysticism been wanting. 

 A peculiar form of it deserves to be especially mentioned. 

 It is called mystical calculation ; its origin lies buried in 

 the most remote practical teachings. Hippocrates himself, 

 observing a country which up to this day is shunned on ac- 

 count of its malarial influence, has established with minute 

 exactness the duration of the feverish maladies which 

 arose from the marshy distric's with peculiar regularity. 

 He not only ascertained the precise duration of the fever, 

 but also the days when a decided crisis would appear. 

 The numbers acquired served to denote when the treat- 

 ment should be discontinued as the critical days, the 7th, 

 the nth, e'c, designated the proper time for the admin- 

 istration of remedies. In this way the calculating sys- 

 tem became celebrated, and as it was made a subject of 

 universal contemplation before the days of Hippocrates 

 by the various philosophical schools, we cannot be sur- 

 prised that those who succeeded them thought to reci g- 

 nize in the theory more than mere expressions concern- 

 ing the legitimate relation of things to each other. 



During the Middle Ages astrology formed a close alli- 

 ance with medicine, and the constrllations occupied the 

 places of the ancient oracles. But even subsequent ages 

 have repeatedly had recourse to conceptions which nearly 

 approach those of the Pythagoreans. Particularly towards 

 the close of the preceding century, discoveries in the de_ 

 partments of electricity and magnetism caused the bio 



logical sciences to adopt the theory of polar attraction, 

 a doctrine in which the heterodoxy of animal magnetism, 

 and its companion spiritualism is firmly rooted. In the 

 Pythagorean philosophy, a two-fold existence was sup- 

 posed to be at the root of everything, and the circulation 

 of this doctrine has resolved itself, so to speak, into the 

 " Great Prophet " of America, according to whose con- 

 ception Providence is a moving substance formed of posi- 

 tive and negative proportions, and which acts upon mat- 

 ter in different ways through the agency of the number 7. 



Among all these attempts to grasp the phenomena in 

 a de'ermined manner, an effort comes to light which is 

 in every way worthy of recognition. It has been shown 

 that the human intellect has no more a universal and 

 spiritual form which can establish the relation and con- 

 ception of things, than it has a material one. Calculation 

 produces the definite value by which we are enabled to 

 assign things to their proper places. It is for this reason 

 that intricate natural sciences, physics and chemistry par- 

 take every day of a more mathematical character. The 

 descriptive natural sciences follow timidly in their foot- 

 steps, and even physiology and psychology have already 

 been made to travel over the same road. How then, 

 could medicine escape ? 



However, the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 and 10, do not suffice 

 to explain the infinite multiplicity of things, even if the 

 combination of ten numbers serves to account for each 

 calculation. Every reckoning about actual things rests 

 upon observation and net upon inspiration. The more 

 difficult the calculation, the more complex must have 

 been the preceding observation which went to supply the 

 elements of the reckoning. This is true, earnest work, 

 such as no one individual is capable of producing. One 

 workman assists the other, and one generation helps an- 

 other, not only in transmitting results, but also their aim 

 and object. 



It will be a difficult task, nevertheless, for any genera- 

 tion to recognize self-acting forces in numbers. If two 

 objects attract each other it is not owing to the things 

 themselves. And there is no number in existence which 

 possesses healing powers, and no talisman compounded 

 of numbers which possesses active force. The numbers 

 supposed to play an important part in disease only serve 

 to give those versed in art the means by which they may 

 discover the time and duration of the malady and arrange 

 their mode of action accordingly. 



But just as Astronomy is incapable of moving the 

 moon or planets by means of numbers, so is the physician 

 unable to produce any effect upon the course of disease 

 or recovery by the same process. Numbers are not rem- 

 edies, for remedies are actual things, which stand at the 

 disposal of medical art ; are actually applicable, and which 

 possess in a certain sense real powers of healing. When 

 we consider them, however, we come to a lengthy and 

 apparently increasing contention which is embodied in 

 medical history in the names of physiologists and technol- 

 ogists. Physiologists are those who seek healing powers 

 within the physical organization itself, while technologists 

 think to recognize them in such means or influences 

 wh'ch exist independently of the patient and are directed 

 toward him. 



It is true that the physiologist does not altogether des- 

 pise remedies, but they only serve, in his opinion, to set 

 the organic powers at large. The technologist, on the 

 contrary, intrenches upon the organism. He forces life 

 into artifical conditions. He " orders " and " prescribes" 

 where the physiologist is satisfied with existing circum- 

 stances and comes forward as Nature's servant. 



Of course a long time has elapsed since the contro- 

 versy between these two schools was at its height, but 

 in some recent accounts it appears again, not only in 

 specified cases of treatment, but also in a general sense. 



Not many years ago blood-letting was a daily occur- 

 rence in every hospital, and indeed in almost every private 

 practice. Now it has become so rare that young physi 



