him. I satisfied the old man that I would readily explain for him the occasion of his being off his beat. I was obliged to wait some time holding the bleeding vessel between my fingers until some medical assistance arrived with ligatures and needles. I was much relieved when an old house-surgeon of Middlesex hospital, Mr. Tuson, made his appearance with proper apparatus; and to him I resigned the care of the patient. The arteries were tied; and the wound was then properly sewed and done up,"

THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY APPLIED TO THE STUDY OF MEDICINE

[Vol. i. page 45.]

If medical science is to be improved it is mainly by applying to its investigation the great principle of the inductive philosophy of Lord Bacon: viz., that of ascertaining the universality of a fact.

Medicine must be based upon facts, any other foundation would be but one of sand. The popular idea that diseases are separate essences, and that an estimate can be formed of them apart from the living being in whom they occur, is as absurd a notion as could by any possibility enter the mind of man. These medical Berkleyites fancy that even a pleurisy would still be something real, although there were no living beings in whom this disease could be manifested.

The student on commencing the practical study of his profession must be firmly persuaded that disease is not an abstraction, but that it is a mode of acting different from the ordinary and healthy mode-a mode of disorganizing, of suffering, of dying, requiring a living sentient body.

Dr. Latham, with that good sense and sound exercise of the thinking principle which so remarkably characterizes his acute and logical mind, observes, that " In medical science, the only materials of our knowledge are those things which are referable to our sensations and perceptions: matters of fact. Such are the temperature of the skin; the number and qualities of the pulse; the quantity and quality of the secretion; functions and modes of acting in the several parts and organs of the body; and all their cognizable deviations from what is natural. Also pain; for although pain, as to its actual occurrence in a particular case, must be taken upon the testimony of the sufferer, each man's own experience must some time or other have convinced him that pain is a fact.

The more we exercise ourselves in the observation of medical facts, the more we shall understand the sources of error to be avoided in the reception of them. Time and diligence, and constant intercourse with the sick, if we have but an impartial and honest mind, will enable us to lay up a large and useful store of genuine facts, and draw from it as the treasury of our future knowledge."

We must be careful in not generalizing too hastily-nearly

Medical Gazette.

all the errors of philosophy have originated in conclusions being drawn from the consideration of a few particulars. This source of error has been explained by a wise and good man in a beautiful illustration :-"a watchmaker told me that a gentleman put an exquisite watch into his hands that went irregularly. It was as perfect a piece of work as ever was made. He took it to pieces and put it together again twenty times. No manner of defect was to be discovered, and yet the watch went intolerably. At last it struck him that the balance wheel might have been near a magnet-on applying a needle to it, he found his suspicions true; here was all the mischief. The steel work in the other parts of the watch had a perpetual influence on its motions; and the watch went as well as possible with a new wheel. If the soundest mind be magnetized by any predilection, it must act irregularly."*

Some medical men go into the opposite extreme and exhibit a stubborn reluctance to admit the relation of cause and effect between remedy and cure. Many pride themselves upon this vicious scepticism and wish to be thought to exercise a philosophical caution. Voltaire, who was upon the watch for every ludicrous infirmity of human character, was sharp enough to discern this in physicians, and has made excellent sport of it. He makes a physician of renown come from Memphis to cure Zadig of a wound in his left eye. The physician, however, affirms it to be incurable, and predicts the very day on which Zadig is to lose his sight, repelling at the same time the acci

Cecil's Remains.

dent had not befallen the right instead of the left eye, for them he could have performed the cure; for that wounds of the left eye were in their very nature incurable. But Zadig recovers: and the physician writes a work to prove that he ought nevertheless to have lost his sight.

MEDICAL SATIRISTS.

[Vol. i. page 48.]

In the sketch or impromptu called L'Amour Médicin, slight as it was, Molière contrived to influential body of enemies.

declare war against a new and

This was the medical faculty

which he had slightly attacked in the "Festive die Pierre.” Every science has its weak points, and is rather benefited than injured by the satire which, putting pedantry and quackery out of fashion, opens the way to an enlightened pursuit of knowledge. The mechcal faculty of Paris, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was at a very low ebb. Almost every physician was attached to some particular form of treatment, which he exercised on his patients without distinction, and which probably killed in as many instances as it cured. Their exterior, designed, doubtless, to inspire respect by its peculiar garb and formal manner, was in itself matter of ridicule. They ambled on mules through the city of Paris, attired in an antique and grotesque dress, the jest of its laughter loving people, and the dread of these who were unfortunate enough to be their patients.

The consultations of these sages were conducted in barbarous latinity, or if they condescended to use the popular language, they disfigured it with unnecessary profusion of technical terms, or rendered it unintelligible by a prodigal tissue of scholastic formalities of expression. M. Taschereau quotes the verses of a contemporary.

"Affecter un air pedantisque

Cracher du Grec et du latin,
Longue perruque, habit grotesque

De la fourrure et du satin :

Tout cela reuni, fait presque

Ce qu'on appelle un médicin."

The rules taught by the faculty were calculated to cherish every ancient error and exclude every modern improvement, for they were sworn never to seek out discoveries in the science which they practised, or to depart from the aphorisms of Hippocrates. Daring empirics were found amongst them who ventured on the administration of powerful medicines of which they could not even conjecture the effect. Medical science was, in short, enveloped in ignorance, and to encounter those who followed the profession in the attainment of real knowledge, it was necessary to expose the pedantry and insufficiency of these formal and empty pretenders to a science of which they knew nothing. To rescue the noble art of healing, which has in our day been pursued by men of minds as vigorous and powerful, as their hearts were benevolent, from the hands of ignorance