Much good has undoubtedly resulted from enquiries of this nature. The man who is conversant with medical history must be aware how often time and talents have been misspent, not only in the defence of deceptive theories, and erroneous modes of practice, but in the account of alleged discoveries, which have proved in fact, to be only revivals of doctrines once supposed to be valuable, but long ago exploded as unimportant and useless. It is not only necessary, therefore, to be acquainted with the system which obtains for the time being, but to have at least some notion of the views which regulated the treatment of diseases in by-past ages; else, like the mill-horse, we may work in a circle, tread the same ground over and over again, and leave matters just where we found them. Without this knowledge a practitioner, however observant and wide the range of his personal experience, must ever remain only half informed; for although medicine is, perhaps, beyond all other arts and sciences essentially practical, and books, without experience in the treatment of disease, can never form the real physician, yet the most valuable deductions are those which are confirmed by an extensive comparison of what is seen with what has been read.*
The farther we attempt to penetrate into the mystery of antiquity, the more indistinct does the object of our pursuit become. In place of the certainty which we might have anticipated from a nearer approximation to the head of the stream, we experience
* Vide Moir's "Outlines of Medicine."