The star of the north. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1849-1866, 1857-05-20
MEDICAL SCIENCE,

Ono of the most eminent British physi.
clans has lately publisheda a work, in which
he falls back ON what was substantially the
theory of Hippocrates, more than two thou.
sand years ago. The theory is that modern
practitioners have been in the habit of CIV.
ing TOO much medicine; that nature needs
| only TO be assisted, at critical points aud
cannot be forced; and that, in many cases,
where the disorder is fatal from the first,
medicine is wholly useless.
The old Creek divided diseases into cure.
| BILE and incurabIe, which is much the same
theory as that of the modern Englishman.
If these views are correct, they prove that
what is called medical science is hardly
science after all; for that cannot be sci.
ence, which, at best, is merely experiment.
tai and empirical, and which cannot tell,
till too late, whetber an attack is to be fatal
or not We should hesitate, therefore, to
admit the premises of this British author,
if we were physician, for we would be
too honest 10 deny the conclusion, and We
should shrink from admitting that to cure
or kill was Chit or miss"
1t cannot be denied, however, that medi.
cine is less of a science than mon wish
that it should be. Many diseases wholly
battle The schools. Nor is this all. Ohen,
when disorder has ragged for generation
or two, and, by long study of it, doctors
have come to think they understood it, lol
it disappears almost entirely, 10 be succeed.
ed by some new disease, as subtle, as fatal
and as widely extended as it was in ito
fiercest fury. The plague, the small. pox,
and the Asiatic cholera have devastated tho
world in this way, by turns. Itwouldseem
as if there were some secret law of nature,
which demanded n certain percentage Of
annual mortality and which brought new
epidemcs and unknown disorders on the
scene, in order TO gather the necessary VIC
Tins, as fast as human skill learned to mas.
ter the older types of disease. Ventilation,
cleanliness, exercise, wholesome food, and
freedom from harassing cares, would seem
to be more potent than all the phys-
ic in the world. The experience of the
wisest men and nations leans TO the conclu-
sion that we may do something to prevent,
but little TO arrest disease.
Nor is it strange that medical science has
learned so little. When we consider the
delicacy of the human frame, its complex
character, and the many disturbing inhu-
ences TO health, the wonder is, as Sir Thom-
as Browne quantity remarks in his 'Religio
Medici," not that we live so few years, but
that we do not die every day. The body,
the diseases to which it is subject, the ef.
fec,s of medicines, and the control exercis-
ed by atmosphere changes over it, togeth.
er makes problem only less Intricate than
that even mighler one, the conditions of
Immortality and the position of the soul af-
ter death. Perhaps it is as well that this
should be so. 1t is doubtless part of Gods
providence towards men, that even the pro-
fouudest human intellect should feel, in re-
la,ion to some subjects, that beyond Ger.
tain point its knowledge should not go, that
the issues of life and death were beyond its
ken, that, in word, man was finite and
only the Creator infinite. We are, at best.
but creatures ofthe dust, insects of an hour
There is mightier power in Nature than
ourselves. 1t is reflection before which
infdelity grows dumb, and at which the
humble christian becomes shumbler-Lsdg~.