"Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of disease, and cause us to blush at our prescriptions. What mischief have we done under the belief of false facts and theories! We have assisted in multiplying diseases; we have done more; we have increased their mortality.... The art of healing is like an unroofed temple, uncovered at the top, and cracked at the foundation."
Magendie, late a distinguished French physician and physiologist, says, as follows:—
"I hesitate not to declare,—no matter how sorely I shall wound our vanity,—that so gross is our ignorance of the real nature 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 are frequently compelled to 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, a learned and voluminous British writer, also says:—
"The science of medicine is a barbarous jargon; and the effects of our medicines upon the human system, are, in the highest degree, uncertain, except, indeed, that they have already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and famine combined."
Professor Clark, of the Harvard Medical School, in Boston, in an address of his, recently published, insists, again and again, that medicine never cures, and that it rarely, if ever, so much as aids nature; while he exalts, in an unwonted degree, the remedial effects of every hygienic influence. Let him who longer doubts, read this most remarkable production; and with the more care from the fact that it is a very fair exponent of the doctrines now held at the very fountain-head of medical orthodoxy.
From a work entitled, "Memoirs of James Jackson, Jr.," late of Boston, written by his father, I have extracted the following. It is part of a letter, written from Europe, to his venerable father, the present elder Dr. James Jackson, of Boston.
"But our poor pathology and worse therapeutics—shall we ever get to a solid bottom? Shall we ever have fixed laws? Shall we ever know, or, must we always be doomed to suspect, to presume? Is perhaps to be our qualifying word forever and for aye? Must we forever be obliged to hang our heads when the chemist and natural philosopher ask us for our laws and principles?... If honest, must we not acknowledge that, even in the natural history of disease, there is very much doubtful, which is received as sure? And in therapeutics, is it better yet, or worse? Have we judged—have we deduced our results, especially in the last science—from all, or from a selection of facts?
"Do we know, for example, in how many instances such a treatment fails, for the one time it succeeds? Do we know how large a proportion of cases would get well without any treatment, compared with those that recover under it? Do not imagine, my dear father, that I am becoming a sceptic in medicine. It is, not quite as bad as that. I shall ever believe, at least, that the rules of hygeia must be and are useful, and that he only can understand and value them, who has studied pathology. Indeed, I may add that, to a certain extent, I have seen demonstrated the actual benefit of certain modes of treatment in acute diseases. But, is this benefit immense? When life is threatened, do we very often save it? When a disease is destined by Nature to be long, do we very often materially diminish it?"
It is worthy of remark, that the discussions in the pages of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, for two or three years past, concerning the treatment of scarlatina, have usually resulted, practically, in favor of the no-medicine system. It clearly appears that the less our reliance on medicine, in this disease, the better. But what shall hinder or prevent our coming to similar results, in the investigation, in time to come, of other diseases?