The different branches of Philosophy have also of late been very universally studied by all who pretended to a liberal education. The advantages of this are manifest. It frees the mind from prejudice and superstition; fits it for the investigation of truth; induces habits of reasoning and judging properly; opens an inexhaustible source of entertainment; paves the way to the improvement of arts and agriculture; and qualifies men for acting with propriety in the most important stations of life.
Natural History is likewise become an object of general attention; and it well deserves to be so. It leads to discoveries of the greatest importance. Indeed agriculture, the most useful of all arts, is only a branch of Natural History, and can never arrive at a high degree of improvement where the study of that science is neglected.
Medicine however has not, as far as I know, in any country, been reckoned a necessary part of the education of a gentleman. But surely no sufficient reason can be assigned for this omission. No science lays open a more extensive field of useful knowledge, or affords more ample entertainment to an inquisitive mind. Anatomy, Botany, Chymistry, and the Materia Medica, are all branches of Natural History, and are fraught with such amusement and utility, that the man who entirely neglects them has but a sorry claim either to taste or learning. If a gentleman has a turn for observation, says an excellent and sensible writer[[1]], surely the natural history of his own species is a more interesting subject, and presents a more ample field for the exertion of genius, than the natural history of spiders and cockle-shells.
We do not mean that every man should become a physician. This would be an attempt as ridiculous as it is impossible. All we plead for is, that men of sense and learning should be so far acquainted with the general principles of Medicine, as to be in a condition to derive from it some of those advantages with which it is fraught; and at the same time to guard themselves against the destructive influences of Ignorance, Superstition, and Quackery.
As matters stand at present, it is easier to cheat a man out of his life than of a shilling, and almost impossible either to detect or punish the offender. Notwithstanding this, people still shut their eyes, and take every thing upon trust that is administered by any Pretender to Medicine, without daring to ask him a reason for any part of his conduct. Implicit faith, every where else the object of ridicule, is still sacred here. Many of the faculty are no doubt worthy of all the confidence that can be reposed in them; but as this can never be the character of every individual in any profession, it would certainly be for the safety, as well as the honour, of mankind, to have some check upon the conduct of those to whom they entrust so valuable a treasure as health.
The veil of mystery, which still hangs over medicine, renders it not only a conjectural, but even a suspicious art. This has been long ago removed from the other sciences, which induces many to believe that Medicine is a mere trick, and that it will not bear a fair and candid examination. Medicine, however, needs only to be better known, in order to secure the general esteem of mankind. Its precepts are such as every wise man would chuse to observe, and it forbids nothing but what is incompatible with true happiness.
Disguising Medicine not only retards its improvement as a science, but exposes the profession to ridicule, and is injurious to the true interests of society. An art founded on observation never can arrive at any high degree of improvement, while it is confined to a few who make a trade of it. The united observations of all the ingenious and sensible part of mankind, would do more in a few years towards the improvement of Medicine, than those of the Faculty alone in a great many. Any man can tell when a medicine gives him ease as well as a physician; and if he only knows the name and dose of the medicine, and the name of the disease, it is sufficient to perpetuate the fact. Yet the man who adds one single fact to the stock of medical observations, does more real service to the art, than he who writes a volume in support of some favourable hypothesis.
Very few of the valuable discoveries in Medicine have been made by physicians. They have in general either been the effect of chance or of necessity, and have been usually opposed by the Faculty, till every one else was convinced of their importance. An implicit faith in the opinions of teachers, an attachment to systems and established forms, and the dread of reflections, will always operate upon those who follow Medicine as a trade. Few improvements are to be expected from a man who might ruin his character and family by even the smallest deviation from an established rule.
If men of letters, says the author of the performance quoted above, were to claim their right of inquiry into a matter that so nearly concerns them, the good effects on Medicine would soon appear. Such men would have no separate interest from that of the art. They would detect and expose assuming Ignorance under the mask of Gravity and Importance, and would be the judges and patrons of modest merit. Not having their understandings perverted in their youth by false theories, unawed by authority, and unbiassed by interest, they would canvass with freedom the most universally received principles in Medicine, and expose the uncertainty of many of those doctrines, of which a physician dares not so much as seem to doubt.
No argument, continues he, can be brought against laying open Medicine, which does not apply with equal, if not greater force, to religion; yet experience has shewn, that since the laity have asserted their right of inquiry into these subjects, Theology, considered as a science, has been improved, the interests of real religion have been promoted, and the clergy have become a more learned, a more useful, and a more respectable body of men, than they ever were in the days of their greatest power and splendour.