Review of hydropathy, or the water-cure / by John Forbes.

  • Forbes, John, Sir, 1787-1861.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Review of hydropathy, or the water-cure / by John Forbes. 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 condemnation of drugs is not new, nor confined to physicians of the present time. Hear what some of the great lights in the profession say of their art: Magendie— In the actual condition of medical science the physician mostly plays but the part of simple spectator of the sad episodes which his profession furnishes him. Bichat—There is not, in the history of remedies, any general system. The incoherent assemblage of opinions, themselves incoherent, it is of all sciences the best representation of the caprices of the human mind. It is said the practice of medicine is disheartening. I say more, it is not in any respect that of a reasoning man. Dr. Forbes, Editor of the London Medical Review, in the January number, 1846, says that in a large proportion of cases treated by Allo- pathic physicians, the disease is cured by nature and not by them. That in a lesser, but still not a small proportion, the disease is cured by nature in spite of them; in other words, their interference opposing instead of assisting the cure. Consequently, it would fare as well, or better, with patients, if all remedies, at least all active remedies, especially drugs, were abandoned. We repeat our readiness to admit these inferences as just, and to abide the consequences of their adoption. Editor of the London Lancet, vol. 1, p. 454, for 1844—■ If the natu- ral philosopher or scientific chemist turns from his own science to thera- peutics, he would be led either to abandon his confidence in the uniform- ity and stability of the laws of nature, or infer that the spirit of modern science has not yet animated the practical physician. Dr. Pereira says, in a lecture published in 1845 in the London Medi- cal Gazette, We can hardly refuse our assent to the observation of the late Sir Gilbert Blane, that, in many cases, patients get well in spite of the means employed; and sometimes when the practitioner fancies that he has made a great cure we may fairly assume the patient to have had a happy escape. Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, made the following honest confession in one of his Lectures : I here owe it to the general reader to confess, that, as far as I know, the medical profession can scarcely produce a sin- gle volume in its practical department, from the works of Hippocrates down to the last made text-book, which, by the requisitions of an exact philosophy, will not be found to contain nearly as much fiction as truth. I am here incessantly led to make an apology for the instability of the theories and practice of physic; and those physicians generally become the most eminent who have the soonest emancipated themselves from the tyranny of the schools of physic. Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of disease, and cause us to blush at our prescriptions. What mischief have we done under the belief of false facts and false theories! We hove assisted in multiplying diseases; we have done more, we have increased their mortality. I will not pause to beg pardon of the faculty for acknowledging in this public manner the weakness of our profession. I am pursuing truth and am indifferent whither I am led if she is only my leader.