History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3

by Henry Thomas Buckle

[826] This idea runs through the whole of his writings. In the following passage, it is more succinctly stated than in any other: ‘In pathology, and in the prognosis of particular diseases, it is absolutely necessary to enter into the distinction of these causes. I call the one direct causes, those which act upon the nervous system directly; and the other indirect causes, those which produce the same effect, but by destroying those organs which are necessary to the support of the excitement, viz. the whole system of circulation.’ Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 135. Even this passage, clear as it seems, can only be rightly interpreted by taking the context into consideration.

[827] For, as is truly observed by probably the greatest pathologist of our time, ‘Humoral pathology is simply a requirement of common practical sense; and it has always held a place in medical science, although the limits of its domain have, no doubt, been variously circumscribed or interpreted at different times. Of late years, it has met with a new basis and support in morbid anatomy, which, in the inadequacy of its discoveries in the solids to account for disease and death, has been compelled to seek for an extension of its boundary through a direct examination of the blood itself.’ Rokitansky's Pathological Anatomy, vol. i. p. 362, London, 1854.

[828] Unless, as is the case in geometry, the premisses, which are suppressed, are so slight as to be scarcely perceptible.

[829] He was so indignant at the bare idea of a humoral pathology, that even Hoffmann, who before himself was the most eminent advocate of solidism, fell under his displeasure for allowing some little weight to the humoral doctrines. He says that Hoffmann ‘has not applied his fundamental doctrine so extensively as he might have done; and he has everywhere intermixed an humoral pathology, as incorrect and hypothetical as any other.’ Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 410. At p. 470, ‘I have, therefore, assumed the general principles of Hoffmann. And, if I have rendered them more correct, and more extensive in their application, and, more particularly, if I have avoided introducing the many hypothetical doctrines of the Humoral Pathology which disfigured both his and all the other systems that have hitherto prevailed, I hope I shall be excused for attempting a system, which, upon the whole, may appear new.’

[830] ‘The solid parts of the body seem to be of two kinds: one whose properties are the same in the dead as in the living, and the same in the animate as in many inanimate bodies; the other, whose properties appear only in living bodies. In the last, a peculiar organization, or addition, is supposed to take place; in opposition to which the first are called the simple solids. Of these only, we shall treat here; and of the others, which may be called vital solids, being the fundamental part of the nervous system, we shall treat under that title in the following section.’ Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 10.

[831] These diseases are laxity, flaccidity, &c. See the enumeration of ‘the diseases of the simple solids,’ in Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 14.

[832] Cullen's Works, vol. i. pp. 65, 600, vol. ii. p. 364. Dr. Thomson, who had access to papers and lectures of Cullen's, which have never been published, says (Life of Cullen, vol. i. p. 265), ‘His speculations with regard to the different functions of the nervous system, but more particularly with regard to that of the Animal Power or Energy of the brain, were incorporated with every opinion which he taught concerning the phenomena of the animal economy, the causes of diseases, and the operation of medicines; and they may be said to constitute a most important part, if not the sole basis, of that system of the Practice of Physic, which he made the subject of prelection, as well as of study, for a period of nearly forty years, before he ventured to give it to the public.’ I should mention, that Cullen, under the term ‘brain,’ included the contents of the vertebral column as well as of the cranium.

[833] Cullen's Works, vol. i. pp. 40, 546, 558, 648, vol. ii. p. 321.

[834] Cullen's Works, vol. i. pp. 86, 91, 100, 101, 108, 115, 116, 553, 592, vol. ii. pp. 35, 366. Compare the summary of causes in Thomson's Life of Cullen, vol. i. p. 289.

[835] He says (Works, vol. i. pp. 31, 32), ‘Whoever has the smallest tincture of metaphysics will know the distinction pointed at here between the qualities of bodies as primary and secondary.’ … ‘Whether these distinctions be well or ill founded, it is not my business to inquire.’ But though he did not deem it his business to inquire into the accuracy of these and similar distinctions, he thought himself justified in assuming them, and reasoning from them as if they could explain the working of those sensations, whose perversion formed the point of contact between metaphysics and pathology. See, for instance, in his Works, vol. i. p. 46, the long series of unproved and improvable assertions respecting the combination and comparison of sensations giving rise to memory, imagination, and the like.