An oration delivered before the Philadelphia Medical Society pursuant to appointment : February 3, 1827 / by R. La Roche.

  • La Roche, R. (René), 1795-1872.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An oration delivered before the Philadelphia Medical Society pursuant to appointment : February 3, 1827 / by R. La Roche. 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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    servedly charged on physicians, is far from being peculiar to them; and it does not require much attention to find, that if by them it has been displayed to a great and sometimes even to a reprehensi- ble extent, the fault should be ascribed to the peculiar nature of the subject they are called upon to investigate;—the laws by which the human system is regulated in health, and their deviation in disease, being more difficult to understand and explain, than those of inorganic matter and of states, and thereby allowing a wider scope for the exercise of the imagination. But although prepared to admit, that this unrestrained fondness for speculation has been a fruitful source of injury to the progress of medicine, I am far from feeling disposed to coincide in sentiment with those who deny, in the most unqualified terms, the utility of theor)T, and affect to rely exclusively on experience. At all times, and in every enlightened country, theory has been admitted, by judicious minds, to be indispensably necessary in every department of human know- ledge, and this opinion, which applies with equal force to the sciences generally, does so in a more especial manner to the one which it is our province to cultivate, as in this the mere detail of solitary or unconnected facts can prove of little or no real utility, and must slide imperceptibly down the tide of oblivion. Of the correctness of this opinion, a few remarks will, I trust, be sufficient to convince every unprejudiced mind. Thus it is a fact, sufficiently obvious even to the most common observer, that no two individuals possess precisely equal degrees of physical and mental energy. Human temperaments, also, although susceptible of several grand divisions, are found to present innumerable shades of differ- ence in various subjects, and each human being manifests a peculiar idiosyncrasy. Aware of these circumstances, it will not be difficult to understand, that a disease attacking individuals so variously orga- nized, will be modified to such a degree, as to be viewed by inex- perienced observers as dissimilar, whereas it will be considered in each, by one accustomed to generalize, as a mere shade of the same complaint; cases of similar nature or not, must be compared; their points of analogy, if any such exist, must be carefully noted, in order that these cases may be referred to a distinct class, and submitted to a particular and appropriate mode of treatment, or arranged with other cases of a different nature, and requiring a corresponding dif- ference in the curative plan. The actions of general and particular causes'must be studied, in reference to their effects on various or-