The psychical tendencies of medical science / by A. O. Kellogg.

  • Kellogg, A. O. (Abner Otis), 1818-1888.
Date:
[1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychical tendencies of medical science / by A. O. Kellogg. 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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    false, have each found able and conscientious supporters, and equally able and honest opponents—faithful believers, even unto death, and unfaithful disbelievers; men having nothing whatever in com- mon with each other except the one sole principle, that in all things they are bound to disagree, and that the same class of facts, observed by opposing sects, shall serve to confirm diametrically opposite theo- ries, and lead to sadly conflicting results. One sect goes forth to combat disease armed with the most potent weapons,—the lancet and barber's basin, the blistering plaster and bolus-box—and inscrib- ing upon their banners, as a watchword, Contraria contrariis curentur. Another, trusting in minute saccharine globules, equally remarkable for their impotence, unfurl their banners inscribed, Similia similibus curentur, and rush to the contest, shouting, Great is Hahnemann of the homeopaths ! While some faithful disciple of a third class, like Diogenes in his tub, looks out from his comfortable sitz-bad, or from under the droppings of his shower- bath, and shouting, Great is Priessnitz of the hydropaths ! seeks to throw cold water upon all sects, systems and patients, applying it to his own indiscriminately. A fourth class, respectable in philo- sophical attainments at least, if not in numbers, in their dealings with human infirmities are beginning to recognize in all cases, and among all sects, the operation of a psychological element as influ- encing the result, as well as one purely physical or physiological, and contend most logically that neither of these elements can be entirely ignored while man is recognized as a composite being. It must be admitted that there is in all systems much good, as well as some evil; in this system perhaps more evil of a positive, in the other of a negative character. Were this not the case, medi- cal science would not be like most other things belonging to the earth; and, judging from the signs of the times, the medical, like the Christian millennium, though approaching is yet some centuries in the future. In former papers we have endeavored to throw some light upon the reciprocal influence of these two elements, the physical and the