Ars medici : an essay on the doctor's art and its relation to science / by John H. Clarke.

  • Clarke, John Henry, 1852-1931.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ars medici : an essay on the doctor's art and its relation to science / by John H. Clarke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library at Emory University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, Emory University.

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    still so young, it is little wonder that medicine is as yet only an art:—here the conversion of the art of Healing into a science is assumed to depend on the perfecting of our knowledge of the action of drugs. Until this is accomplished, Therapeutics must remain only an art. The confusion of thought betrayed by these quotations— and they might be multiplied ad infinitum—would be ridiculous, simply, were it not fraught with such lamentable results to medical teaching and medical practice. The unreflecting mind of the medical student being impressed from his first entrance on his studies with the notion that art and science are convertible things, and that science is immeasurably superior to art, he soon learns to despise what is only an art, and cleave to everything that has the appearance or reputation of being scientific. The energy and devotion which should be spent in acquiring skill in the practice of his art are squandered in vain endeavours to find scientific explanations of the inexplicable ; theories that shall satisfactorily dispose of the mystery that underlies all the phenomena of life, in health and in disease. Until this desirable end has been attained, the doctor's function must remain only an art; and the student and the practitioner need not expect to be able to do very much for their patients. Needless to say, all this is folly unutterable. Science is science; and art is art. The two, though closely related, are absolutely distinct—as distinct as the clay is from the potter who uses and fashions it. Science is knowledge— the knowledge of facts duly ordered in their right relations. Art is action—the skilled performance of right acts. Knowledge may be imparted: practical skill can only be acquired by rigid self-discipline and patient exercise of natural powers, No perfection in knowledge will ever do away with the need of artistic skill in applying it : action will never be knowledge nor knowledge action to the world's end. II. Partly accounted for by this confusion of thought, and