The Columbian fountain., 1846-09-24

him OF the marvellous cures wrought by the
small doses Of the Hom9opaIhists. he said,
:. this was no peculiar cause for boasling, as
he himself had, for the last Two years. been
curing his patients with even less, viz, with
nothing al all 20
ACKNOWLEDGED WANT OF AMY FIXED PRiNcI-
PIE IN MEDICINE.
GiItanner says, (Dorstellung des Browns
chen Systems, ii. 6U8,) /" as the art OF healing
has no fixed principle, as nothing IN II is pos
tive, as we have but little sure experience,
every physician has right TO act upon his
own opinions. Where there is nothing but
conjecture, one conjecture is as good as ano
ther. In the gloom OF ignorance in which ply
sicians grope along, there is no ray of light TO
guide them and when two Of them meet at
the bedside Of patient, they can scarcely
refrain from laughing, If they look at each
other" We feel daily" says Kruger Han
sen," (Brillenlose Refexionem, p. 81 "that
we are far from possessing fixed and pure
method OF cure. The works on therapeutics
furnish the most eminent proofs what confu-
sion exists, even among those physicians who
stand the highest in their art Its state, which
has long and deservedly been the object Of the
lowest jokes, demands, for the benefit OF man
kind, extensive improvements"
"Whoever" SAYS Schweickert, "attends TO
the progress of medical science, must observe
that its practice has not advanced one step since
Hippocrates and Galen but that, on the con-
trary, we are perhaps much behind them: for
fifty years ago.. the greater number of sick per-
sons were killed, according TO the prescriptions
of their physicians, by bleeding; forty years
ago, by purgatives thirty years ago, by clys-
,ers twenty years ago, by the Brunonian sys-
tenn; and celebrated physician asserts, that
that system has made victims of greater num-
Der of human beings, than the whole revolu
ton AIRY war from 1898 TO 1875"
"The routine practice" says Luther, 'does
not merit the name Of sytem because it does
not satisfy the postuata OF a system; it wants
order, coheence OF parts and scientific unity
it is only an aggregate Of inconguous matters,
mere rhapsody"
''They employ" says Kruger Hanson speak
ing of violent medicines, "for The simplest dis
eases, which nature alone, il not disturbed,
would overcome, medicine so violent, that they |
form the cause Of many chronic diseases"
AcKNow STATE OF MEDIC AL PRAcTIoE.
From what has been said, may be easily
conjectured the state Of Medical practice; but
the following Acknowledgements place il beyond
doubt. ,
Imposture exercised its rule in the time of
Hippocrates and this venerable old man thus
expresses his sbiter regrets: "Multus esse
medcos fama ac nomne, re ct opere paucos."
sin name and repute, there are many phys- |
clans in fact and in practice few" ~
Boerhaave says 'tIf we compare the good
which half dozen true disciples Of Kscula-
Plus have done since their art began, with the
evil that the immense number Of doctors have
inflicted on Mankind, we must be satisfied.
that it would have been infinitely better if med
ica men had never existed"
''Medicine, in the hands of ignorant men
and imposters" say Sinbaldi ''has contributed,
particularly in Europe, to deteriorate the hu-
man race"
''The abuse" say the Heidelburg Clinical
Annals, "that the seryile herd of common doc
tors make Of medicaments, Of The effects OF
which they are ignorant, for the cure of diseas-
es; the form OF which they seldom, and the
nature Of which they never know, is indeed
Dreadful 1t is an indisputable truth, that many
more die from the intermedling of physicians
than are saved by them"
81 know very well' says an old practitioner
''that perhaps more than seyen-tenths of man
kind die, not from disease, but from the insult
ableness and excess of medicine"
Kerrlg- Hansen says,t medicine, as it has
been hitherto practised, is pestilence to man
kind it has carried off greater number Of
victims, than all that murderous wars have ever
done; and it appears to be rather a means Of
preventing over population than the art OF saw
ing lives" .at 4.s...s,.5s itl m
''It has always appeared TO me most unac
says Or. Forth,t how mankind
can continue 10 have the slightest confidence
in medicine and its prescribers! This is ex
plicabe only by the carelessness with which
they look at this destroying art; they could not
otherwise fail TO see, that medicine is only
subtle imposture, and physicians either impos-
ters or ignorant. There is scarcely more dis
honest trade Imaginable than the art OF tmedi-
cine in its present state"
The philosophic Bacon said, "that quacks
and old women, do often, in the cure of dis
eases, succeed better than learned physicians"
But if the testimony Of physician is preferred
TO that of philosopher, take that Of Sydenham
who says, ''that which is called medicine is
indeed rather the art Of praiing and telling sto-
res, than the art Of healing" The following
extract from Dr. Buchan bears upon the same
subject, where he says, "that very few Of the
valuable discoveries in medicine have been
made by physicians they have, 10 general,
been either the effect Of chance or necessity,
and have been always opposed BY the faculty,
till every one else was convinced OF their i'm
porlance. An implicit faith in the opinions Of
teachers, an attachment 10 systems and estab-
u r. - Il