Ninth Annual Introductory Address, Delivered Before the Class of the Medical Department of the University of Nashville, November 7, 1859 (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Ninth Annual Introductory Address, Delivered Before the Class of the Medical Department of the University of Nashville, November 7, 1859A great difficulty connected with this subject, as already inti mated, is, that the action of medicine is a perfect mystery, especially to the uninformed. Hence priestcraft and witchcraft have been invoked, and a seventh son has been preferred to the most erudite physician. There is nothing in the appearance or the physical qualities of opium, or ipecac., which would indicate that the one would act upon the brain and the other upon the stomach. These facts are only known from observation. And we forget that in medicine, as any where else in nature, for every effect there must not only be a cause, but an adequate cause, and that consequently such medication as can of necessity produce no physiological change, can at all relieve disease, and that the therapeutical effect of a remedy is but the result of its physiological action. This point I think has been greatly obscured by establishing a difference between the therapeutical and physiological effects of remedies. I know that disease modifies the effect of a remedy, but still the tendency of every remedy is to produce the same physiological changes in health as in disease, and it is only by effecting physiological changes that health is restored.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis 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.