E. MINK. 
316 
MEDICAL ART ANI) SANITARY SCIENCE. 
Ry E. MINK, V.S., Rochesteu, N. Y. 
( Read before the Rochester Veterinary Medical Association.) 
We think it would be difficult to tind, in the present day, a 
medical man of conceded intelligence and observation who would 
deny the utterance of Dr. Dixon some years ago, to wit: that 
“Nature is ever busy, b } 7 the silent operation of her own forces, 
in curing disease. Her medicines are air, warmth, food, water, 
exercise and sleep. Their use is directed by instinct; and that 
man is most worthy the name of physician, who most reveres 
her unerring laws.’’ 
O 
Great progress lias been made during the last few decades in 
what are called the exact sciences. Yet we think it will be gen¬ 
erally admitted that a corresponding progress lias not been made 
in the rational treatment of disease. In most cases that terminate 
favorably, an undue estimate is placed on the remedies used by 
the attending physician, while the force which nature exerted in 
effecting the restoration is underestimated or entirely overlooked. 
For the general patronage which empiricism and all irrational 
methods of practice receive, medical men of the past and present 
are themselves much to be blamed. To a great extent they have 
played on the credulity of the people, by allowing them to attrib¬ 
ute to the medical art, without attempt at correction, an importance 
in the cure of disease it does not possess. 
Had medical men made the efforts they should have made, 
during the many years they occupied positions of prominence and 
influence, to enlighten people in regard to the measure of merit 
that should be accorded to nature and art respectively, the super¬ 
stitions and absurd credulity that exists among people so generally 
in regard to the transcendent power of the medical art to cure 
disease would be unknown; and in its stead would be entertained 
a rational conception of the real power each exerts. 
