登陆注册
15444900000001

第1章 A FRIST PREFACE(1)

The character of the opposition which some of these papers have met with suggests the inference that they contain really important, but unwelcome truths. Negatives multiplied into each other change their sign and become positives. Hostile criticisms meeting together are often equivalent to praise, and the square of fault-finding turns out to be the same thing as eulogy.

But a writer has rarely so many enemies as it pleases him to believe.

Self-love leads us to overrate the numbers of our negative constituency. The larger portion of my limited circle of readers must be quite indifferent to, if not ignorant of, the adverse opinions which have been expressed or recorded concerning any of these Addresses or Essays now submitted to their own judgment. It is proper, however, to inform them, that some of the positions maintained in these pages have been unsparingly attacked, with various degrees of ability, scholarship, and good-breeding. The tone of criticism naturally changes with local conditions in different parts of a country extended like our own, so that it is one of the most convenient gauges of the partial movements in the direction of civilization. It is satisfactory to add, that the views assailed have also been unflinchingly defended by unsought champions, among the ablest of whom it is pleasant to mention, at this moment of political alienation, the Editor of the Charleston Medical Journal.

"Currents and Counter-Currents" was written and delivered as an Oration, a florid rhetorical composition, expressly intended to secure the attention of an audience not easy to hold as listeners.

It succeeded in doing this, and also in being as curiously misunderstood and misrepresented as if it had been a political harangue. This gave it more local notoriety than it might otherwise have attained, so that, as I learn, one ingenious person made use of its title as an advertisement to a production of his own.

The commonest mode of misrepresentation was this: qualified propositions, the whole meaning of which depended on the qualifications, were stripped of these and taken as absolute. Thus, the attempt to establish a presumption against giving poisons to sick persons was considered as equivalent to condemning the use of these substances. The only important inference the writer has been able to draw from the greater number of the refutations of his opinions which have been kindly sent him, is that the preliminary education of the Medical Profession is not always what it ought to be.

One concession he is willing to make, whatever sacrifice of pride it may involve. The story of Massasoit, which has furnished a coral, as it were, for some teething critics, when subjected to a powerful logical analysis, though correct in its essentials, proves to have been told with exceptionable breadth of statement, and therefore (to resume the metaphor) has been slightly rounded off at its edges, so as to be smoother for any who may wish to bite upon it hereafter. In other respects the Discourse has hardly been touched. It is only an individual's expression, in his own way, of opinions entertained by hundreds of the Medical Profession in every civilized country, and has nothing in it which on revision the writer sees cause to retract or modify. The superstitions it attacks lie at the very foundation of Homoeopathy, and of almost every form of medical charlatani**.

Still the mere routinists and unthinking artisans in most callings dislike whatever shakes the dust out of their traditions, and it may be unreasonable to expect that Medicine will always prove an exception to the rule. One half the opposition which the numerical system of Louis has met with, as applied to the results of treatment, has been owing to the fact that it showed the movements of disease to be far more independent of the kind of practice pursued than was agreeable to the pride of those whose self-confidence it abated.

The statement, that medicines are more sparingly used in physicians' families than in most others, admits of a very natural explanation, without putting a harsh construction upon it, which it was not intended to admit. Outside pressure is less felt in the physician's own household; that is all. If this does not sometimes influence him to give medicine, or what seems to be medicine, when among those who have more confidence in drugging than his own family commonly has, the learned Professor Dunglison is hereby requested to apologize for his definition of the word Placebo, or to expunge it from his Medical Dictionary.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 千年缘:三生三世

    千年缘:三生三世

    她本是一个四海为家的医者,本职行善救人可因为他天帝九皇子的出现,他们之间因为各种原因不得不互相伤害,他一直在努力,让她放下所有担忧和他在一起。“这一次,我不会再放开你了,曾经我亲手将你从我的身边推开,现在在给我一次机会,好吗”
  • 邪魅小小姐:红墙内的宫斗

    邪魅小小姐:红墙内的宫斗

    转身之间,已是沧海桑田,曾经的极品白富美在某时某刻突然穿越了,让她引以为豪的白、富、美,全都没有出现在穿越后的她的身上,正当她郁闷至极的时候,一不小心救了翩翩佳公子,却发现竟然是自己的爹爹,于是她挥起了锄头,朝着她的老婆的目标前进着……--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 灭杀左冷禅

    灭杀左冷禅

    萧瑾回到明朝,一位自己的生活或是一本历史小说,可事实告诉他这是一本武侠小说,看萧瑾如何学得一流武功成功击杀左冷禅报的血仇。击杀左冷禅有人用过了,所以改为灭杀左冷禅
  • 使徒异闻录

    使徒异闻录

    催更群:342319088。饕餮市发生了一起爆炸事故。伊尔和青梅竹马开始展开调查,然而真相却越来越扑朔迷离。于是,离奇的故事逐渐上演。于是,看似没超能力却充满超能力的饕餮市传说,现在开始。——————————如果对本书风格感兴趣的,可以试试《第十使徒》。讲述反派混迹于正义阵营中冒险的故事。
  • 劫之爵

    劫之爵

    黑色的火焰!火焰为什么会是黑色的?这火焰来自地狱?这是一片大陆,被分为五个区域,灵域、火届、神区、国邦、蛮荒,每一个区域都有一个极强的势力掌控,数千年来,五大区域井水不犯河水和平共处。但是在某一天,黑色的火焰在其中一个区域爆发,无数生灵丧生,血流成河,染红了一片山河……一名来自异世界的命运悲惨的少年,这一世上天似乎不再对他残忍,堕落之都究竟是惩罚还是考验……虽然天赋异禀,但是面对的还是残酷的打击与离别,一生人世,万古千愁,在地狱里行走的他是否恩能在这片即将爆发的大陆抵抗命运……
  • 菽園雜記

    菽園雜記

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 昆仑晓月

    昆仑晓月

    二十世纪末,冷战结束以后,地球迎来了自人类诞生以来,史上最长的一段和平日子。这是一个与真实世界相似的地球,分为表裡两界,而在里界活动的人,一般被称之为异能者。时值正曆(O.D)纪元2016年,75亿表界人民以及为数若干的里界人类与其他生物,相安无事的相处著。但在一片祥和的背后,某些里界势力,将随著大中华圈的三大里界异能者名门中,一名少年─宇文玉19岁生日之期日近,而即将进行一场牵动世界表里两界发展的大阴谋...
  • 大山作证

    大山作证

    本书为长篇报告文学,全书由一个个有机的真实的故事组成,作者为我们呈现了一幅也许并不是宏大壮丽却绝对动人心魄的历史画卷,再现了扶贫干部为广大群众移民搬迁、建设安置点呕心沥血、大公无私的精神。也描绘醋移民户为了脱贫致富克服种种困难,离开故里的巨大开创精神。
  • 狂邪大少爷

    狂邪大少爷

    落魄大少傲炎云意外开启父亲给他的生日礼物,却不料是异界穿越过来被封印在其中的神兽,在神兽的教导后,废材倔起,夺回一切,从此装逼不断,生活从此变得有姿有味,美女不断投怀送抱。校花倒贴,各色各样的美女爱得他死去活来,却不料卷入了一场更大的阴谋中……………………随跟着不知名神兽开启了星空的装逼大道。
  • 示所犯者瑜伽法镜经

    示所犯者瑜伽法镜经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。