Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from An Introductory Address Delivered in the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania: October 19th, 1857
We are collecting facts in the right spirit, and I dare say in a century or so the accumulation of facts may enable our suc cessors to form a medical science; but I repeat it to you, there is no such thing now as a medical science. Who can tell me how to cure the headache? Or the gout? Or disease of the heart. Nobody. Oh! You tell me doctors cure people. I grant you people are cured. But how are they cured? Gentlemen, nature does a. Great deal; imagination does a great deal. Doctors do but little when they don't do harm. Let me'tell you, gentlemen, what I did when I was the head: physician at Hotel Dieu. Some three or four thousand' patients passed through my hands every year. I divided the patients into.two classes; with one, I followed the dispensary, and gave them the usual medicines without having the least idea why, or wherefore; to the other, I gave bread pills and colored water, without, of course, letting them know anything about it and occasionally, gentlemen, I would create a third division, to whom I gave nothing what ever. These last would fret a good deal, they would feel they were neglected (sick people always feel they are neglected, unless they are well drugged lea imbeciles I) and they would irritate themselves until they got really sick, but nature invari ably came to the rescue, and all the persons in the third class got Well. There was a little mortality among those who received the bread pills and colored water, and the mortality was greatest among those who were carefully drugged according to the dis pensary.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
