The tree of life, or, Human degeneracy : its nature and remedy, as based on the elevating principle of orthopathy / by Isaac Jennings.

  • Jennings, Isaac, active 1847-1860.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The tree of life, or, Human degeneracy : its nature and remedy, as based on the elevating principle of orthopathy / by Isaac Jennings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    The whole system of medicine is based upon the hypothesis that disease is in some shape or manner hostile to life; and formerly it was deemed a very desirable and valuable acquisi- tion to possess the faculty of pathological discernment in an eminent degree, that an early and effectual remedy might be applied for the prevention or destruction of the invading foe. But in the last half century a great change has been wrought in the practice of medicine. Down to a little less than half a century ago, physicians were and had been for a generation or two on the flood-tide of heroic practice. The order of the day was, Take the bull by the horns. Nip disease in the bud. Take disease by storm when you can ; and when you fail in this, lay siege to it, and give it no quarter till you have routed and destroyed it. When you go in to take charge of a patient, put Nature out of the door as you would a squalling cat. Now, physicians are disposed and con- tent to wait and watch, and let disease develop itself— only stand ready to give nature a jog when she needs it. Hold a slack rein, but watch the progress and course of the horse, and be ready with curb, whip, and spur, to correct in season any unwarrantable or dangerous refractory move- ments. The whole drift of thought and action by physi- cians on the subject of medicine is in the right direction, and the faculty, and the world, will soon be ready to make a com- plete somersault and land on a solid scientific basis, with materia medica abated, and materia alimentaria substituted in its place. Sir John Forbes, M. D., of England, has within a few years published a small work entitled, Nature and Art in the Cure of Disease. The error which the author re- gards as the great taint of medical science, and which he combats in the book, is a want of trust in the powers of Na- ture to arrest the progress of disease, and a consequent over- weening in remedial agents as the sole means of cure. He explodes almost, by a simple statement of it, the opinion of