As a matter of course, this movement has its partial reactions. The
province of faith is claimed as a port free of entry to unsupported
individual convictions. The tendency to question is met by the
unanalyzing instinct of reverence. The old church calls back its
frightened truants. Some who have lost their hereditary religious belief
find a resource in the revelations of Spiritualism. By a parallel
movement, some of those who have become medical infidels pass over to the
mystic band of believers in the fancied miracles of Homoeopathy.
Under these influences transmitted to, or at least shared by, the medical
profession, the old question between "Nature," so called, and "Art," or
professional tradition, has reappeared with new interest. I say the old
question, for Hippocrates stated the case on the side of "Nature" more
than two thousand years ago. Miss Florence Nightingale,--and if I name
her next to the august Father of the Healing Art, its noblest daughter
well deserves that place of honor,--Miss Florence Nightingale begins her
late volume with a paraphrase of his statement. But from a very early
time to this there has always been a strong party against "Nature."
Themison called the practice of Hippocrates "a meditation upon death."
Dr. Rush says: "It is impossible to calculate the mischief which
Hippocrates, has done, by first marking Nature with his name and
afterwards letting her loose upon sick people.
Pages:
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226