The celebrated Bichat of Paris, thus speaks of the therapeutic system of his day:
"It is an incoherent assemblage of incoherent opinions; it is perhaps, of all the physiological sciences that which best shows the caprice of the human mind. What do I say?—It is not a science for a methodical mind; it is a shapeless assemblage of inexact ideas, of observations often peurile, of deceptive remedies and of formula as fastidiously and fantastically conceived, as they are tediously arranged."
Then we find the equally celebrated French physician, Majendie, saying:
"I hesitate not to declare, no matter how sorely I shall wound our vanity, that so gross is our ignorance of the physiological disorders called diseases, that it would perhaps be better to do nothing, and resign the complaint we are called upon to treat to the resources of Nature, than to act as we frequently do, without knowing the why and the wherefore of our conduct, and at the obvious risk of hastening the end of our patient."
Dr. Good, the great nosologist, asserts that
"The science of medicine is a barbarous jargon, and the effects of our medicines on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that they have already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence and famine combined."
Sir Astley Cooper, England's greatest surgeon says:
"The science of medicine is founded on conjecture and improved by murder."
But, it may be said, these men lived in the past, and since their time the science of medicine has improved and its practice has become more rational and safe.