Abernethy himself, in speaking of the ordinary resources of daily practice, used to say: "If a man has a clear idea of what he desires to do, he will seldom fail in selecting the proper means of accomplishing it."
So, in gathering the materials for building up a science, the first thing is, to be clear as to those things in which it is deficient. This once determined, all may lend assistance; and this very division of labour, when directed with definite purpose, may render even men most addicted to narrow and partial inquiries, contributors to a great and common object.
In this way, those blows and discouragements so common in the infancy of science, which test our motives and try our patience, may prove tolerable when distributed over the many, instead of proving, as is too common, depressing or destructive when bearing only on the efforts of the few.
If we desire to shorten this labour, we need scarcely say there is no way of doing it but by the adoption of that mode of proceeding to which every other branch of science owes its present position.
I mean the rigid suspension of all hypotheses, setting to work by collecting all the facts in relation to the subject, and dealing with them in strict compliance with the precepts of common sense—or, what is the same thing, Inductive philosophy.
This will soon show us the just amount of the debt we owe to Hunter and Abernethy; and, in leading us onwards, instructively point out why these great men did not farther increase our obligations.
We shall see how the industry and circumspection of the Argus-eyed Hunter, as Abernethy used to call him, enabled him to unfold a legend in nature, which he had neither length of days, sufficient opportunity, nor perhaps aptitude, wholly to decipher; and how far it was developed into practical usefulness by the penetrative sagacity and happy genius of Abernethy; which, like light in darkness, guides and sustains immediate research, and animates and encourages onward inquiry. To appreciate Abernethy, however, it is necessary that the public should have correct views at least of the general nature and objects of Medical Science.
The public have not only a very real interest in acquiring a sound common-sense view of the objects of medicine and surgery, but a far deeper interest than it is possible for any one medical man to have, merely as such, or all medical men put together. This may, for the moment, appear startling to those who have not been compelled to consider the subject; but the reader may glean even from this volume, that so long as life or health, or even money, has value, the remark is strictly true. From all sides mankind have hitherto imbibed little but error. They have been taught or induced to believe that the only objects of medicine and surgery are to prevent or relieve diseases and accidents by the astute employment of drugs, or by certain adroit manipulatory or mechanical proceedings, and par excellence by "operations." Now here is a great mistake—an idea so far from true, that nothing can more delusively define, or more entirely conceal, the higher objects of the science.