fewer and easier of discovery and apprehension, while the laws which express the kinds and habits of these
energies are more easily detected and formulated. Still, the craving of the human mind after generalization and unification is such that scientific patience and suspense are among the rarest while they are the most
fn&mii gUitttal (?K$ttU. AUGUST 1, 1873.
THERAPEUTICAL LAWS. The revolution which the discovery of laws by Newton and Iyepleb, wrought in the study of physics
and astronomy, has often led thoughtful, speculative and ambitious students of medical science to hope that
by
some
and
similar process of generalization the
perplexing problems
which it
presents
numerous
may admit of an enquir-
of easy and harmonious solution. To men ing and sanguine mind the question is apt to
present
itself in some such shape as this :?Is it not possible to reduce the phenomena of life in health and disease to some broad principle which will cover and connect all the manifold and diverse activities which constitute life and make up its idea ? Vital energy is different from every other description of energy, and its substratum, organized substance, different from every other kind of material: there is surely some formula capable of to the mind the vital idiosyncrasy?structural
presenting
and dynamical?of reducing to some simple general pression the multiform phases of organization in
exac-
The term gravitation and the force which it indicates explain all the movements of matter in mass : is there no similar term and force to which the tion.
motions of animated existence can be of the world of life the
phenomena
in
one
generalization
governing We
are
that the
by
and
special
referred,
so
that
may be included law embracing and
its kaleidoscopic manifestations. apt, in indulging such aspirations,
analogy
no means
between
physical
close ; that in the
one
to forget and vital nature is case
we
have to
simple conditions, in the other with very that complex ; physical phenomena are less various and varied than vital, more easily catalogued and measured, and more amenable to the application of
precious virtues of the scientific mind. It is under the impulse arising from this craving after general laws and causes that it has happened that the history of the cultivation of physiology, pathology and therapeutics is mainly a history of attempts to build up systems, to elaborate theories, to formulate laws capable of embracing and explaining all the phenomena of life, disease and drug-action. In the infancy of science this tendency took a mythological shape. Immaterial entities?spiritual autocrats?were invented which unified, represented and governed all the phenomena of nature or the special phenomena of animated and organized nature. Souls were postulated for the organism and its organs, and these souls were the origin and source Such were the autoctrateia of of vital phenomena. Hippocrates, the anima mundi of Pythagoras and Stahl, the entelechy of Aristotle, the psyche of Plato, the archeus of Paracelsus and Van Helmont, the ?principium hylarcliicum of Henry More and the plastic nature of
and
Later
Cudworth.
on
of forces
tities too k the
these immaterial
en-
particular properties, shape vital, mechanical, chemical and dynamical theories or
of life and di
moralists, upon
as
chemical,
sease arose. In pathology there were husolidists and neurists, and diseases were looked
entities
statical
or or
special disturbances of the equilibrium of the body, heterologous with anything that
as
vital
utterly foreign to and existed in (health. This
idea of the
personality
of
wonderful vitality, and is one that will not easily be banished from medicine. It still lingers in pathology, in which heterologous processes and products are spoken of as if they were something essentially different in land, as well as in degree, diseases
has
a
from the processes and products of health. We have learnt to discard entities from science, and to content ourselves with investigating and comparing phenomena as the expressions of various enernow
gies the
motion, special characteristics or
modes of
and with
formulating as
of these
laws
The law
energies. convertibility of physical forces, as expounded by Grove and others, has supplied in physics a principle embracing all the minor changes
of correlation and
mutual
inorganic matter is liable, similar to the law gravitation as including the relations and motions
to which
of
of
deal with
masses.
exact methods of research ; and that the modes of motion?the energies?which underlie the former are
cal activity, and is capable of application to every branch of physiological inquiry. The impulse and shape which
by Carpenter and others to vital phenomena, and the science of physiology can now be cultivated under the guidance of a principle which embraces every description of physiologiThis law has been extended
August 1,
this
1878.]
On the
one
imparted
has
theory
THE HEALTH OF CALCUTTA DURING THE 2nd QUARTER OF 1878. 217
to
physiology
the fact that vital
hand,
is immense.
energies
are
con-
vertible into physical energies?mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical?has given physiologists a power of investigating and measuring vital phenomena, of describing them with precision, and of comparing them with each other, which is gradually converting phyan exact science. On the other hand, the vital fact that energies, such as development and nutrition, are correlated to physical forces?are really the result of conversion of physical into vital modes of
into
siology
motion?has enabled physiologists to study the conditions on which vital phenomena depend and to define them with a precision hitherto unknown. The same law is
sound facts and broad principles are emerging slowly but surely out of the mist of ignorance. Here again tbe thermometer, dynamometer, galvanometer, chemical analysis and other instruments of precision are, under the of conversion of forces, substituting definite facts for hazy indefinite speculation. The laws of drugaction will eventually depend upon exact researches, but the process is necessarily a slow one. Meantime men in the ardent thirst for finality and unification will not wait, and the same process of deification, of manu-
large theory
facture of
siology
entities, which
and
refuge as
did
in our
the
varying only in degree and relativity according to varying conditions of life, has effectually
action which
the
are
same
in kind,
banished the old notions that diseases are entities and diseased activities unique. The idea has been
diligently followed up, and pathological changes are recognized as being subject to the same laws and
now
methods of
inquiry as in physiology ; pathological processes being accounted the homologues of physiological. The best illustration of the application of the physiological method to disease-action is the use in medicine of the thermometer.
It is difficult to the benefit to medical science which
over-estimate
"VVundePvLich has conferred
by his demonstration practical medicine.
of the
value of the thermometer in
We degrees of heat?convert into foot will?the intensity of a great variety of
can now measure
founds if
we
pathological
disturbances which by
thermal energy the in
in
are
of
conversion
hands another and most useful
rately measuring vital
into
being appraised by
Similarly chemistry
thermometer.
our
capable
forces which
are
has
means
placed
of
capable
accu-
of
con-
version into chemical energy, an analysis of tissues, secretions and excretions indicating the kind and amount of .vital action or disturbance which has taken The power which the chemical analysis of urino has given us in the detection and treatment of disease is
place.
the best
example of this.
suring the intensity of
The
use
of instruments
electrical energy
promises
mea-
to
place
hands another faculty of subjecting vital disturbances to accurate researclu The science of therapeu-
iu
our
tics still tists
ledge
lags behind.
The most advanced therapeuto lead this branch of medical knowinto the same fold as physiology and pathology,
are
striving
and of late years
an
immense amount of
good and
sound
by physical and physiological methods has been made concerning the manner in which vital energies
research
generally are as
and
modified
particular descriptions
by drugs.
of vital energy
The science of
drug-action,
cultivated in this manner, is still in its infancy, but
is
resorted to in
theorists in the absence of
working its way into pathology. Virchow's grand genephysiological and pathological processes
ralization that
pathology,
has been banished from
facts
ciples.
spiritualism forefathers and
the
phytherapeutics ;
positive discovery taking and
transcendentalism
; the imagination supplying creative faculty the prin-
Thus has arisen
pretend
a crop of theories of drugto formulate absolute and univer-
principal are known as allopathy, antipathy, homoeopathy, organopathy and dipathy, and the applications of these notions in practice are dignified by the names of allopraxy, antipraxy, homceopraxy and dipraxy. These various pathies and praxies medical science, which have are the false gods of sal laws. Of these the
taken the place of the animce and arcliei of ?idola whose
worship
every scientific
physiology therapeutist is
bound to abhor and denounce. We hold that the influence of any of the pathies is obstructive to the progress of true science, and we regret to observe the tendency that exists to formulate therapeutical laws before the science is ripe for them. The only general law we should incline to admit as yet in therapeutics is the law that places it in the same category of thought and enquiry as physiology and pathology, the law of correlation of vital and physical forces. Much has already been done on this basis, and much more is doing. We shall in time come to understand more clearly than we do how medicinal and other agents and agencies modify the vital energies in health and disease, and be enabled to apply them with intelligence, prescience and power. Meantime we must content ourselves with partial and empirical notions provisionally
grouping what we know of study and use.
of
drug-action
for convenience
energies are more easily detected and formulated. Still, the craving of the human mind after generalization and unification is such that scientific patience and suspense are among the rarest while they are the most
fn&mii gUitttal (?K$ttU. AUGUST 1, 1873.
THERAPEUTICAL LAWS. The revolution which the discovery of laws by Newton and Iyepleb, wrought in the study of physics
and astronomy, has often led thoughtful, speculative and ambitious students of medical science to hope that
by
some
and
similar process of generalization the
perplexing problems
which it
presents
numerous
may admit of an enquir-
of easy and harmonious solution. To men ing and sanguine mind the question is apt to
present
itself in some such shape as this :?Is it not possible to reduce the phenomena of life in health and disease to some broad principle which will cover and connect all the manifold and diverse activities which constitute life and make up its idea ? Vital energy is different from every other description of energy, and its substratum, organized substance, different from every other kind of material: there is surely some formula capable of to the mind the vital idiosyncrasy?structural
presenting
and dynamical?of reducing to some simple general pression the multiform phases of organization in
exac-
The term gravitation and the force which it indicates explain all the movements of matter in mass : is there no similar term and force to which the tion.
motions of animated existence can be of the world of life the
phenomena
in
one
generalization
governing We
are
that the
by
and
special
referred,
so
that
may be included law embracing and
its kaleidoscopic manifestations. apt, in indulging such aspirations,
analogy
no means
between
physical
close ; that in the
one
to forget and vital nature is case
we
have to
simple conditions, in the other with very that complex ; physical phenomena are less various and varied than vital, more easily catalogued and measured, and more amenable to the application of
precious virtues of the scientific mind. It is under the impulse arising from this craving after general laws and causes that it has happened that the history of the cultivation of physiology, pathology and therapeutics is mainly a history of attempts to build up systems, to elaborate theories, to formulate laws capable of embracing and explaining all the phenomena of life, disease and drug-action. In the infancy of science this tendency took a mythological shape. Immaterial entities?spiritual autocrats?were invented which unified, represented and governed all the phenomena of nature or the special phenomena of animated and organized nature. Souls were postulated for the organism and its organs, and these souls were the origin and source Such were the autoctrateia of of vital phenomena. Hippocrates, the anima mundi of Pythagoras and Stahl, the entelechy of Aristotle, the psyche of Plato, the archeus of Paracelsus and Van Helmont, the ?principium hylarcliicum of Henry More and the plastic nature of
and
Later
Cudworth.
on
of forces
tities too k the
these immaterial
en-
particular properties, shape vital, mechanical, chemical and dynamical theories or
of life and di
moralists, upon
as
chemical,
sease arose. In pathology there were husolidists and neurists, and diseases were looked
entities
statical
or or
special disturbances of the equilibrium of the body, heterologous with anything that
as
vital
utterly foreign to and existed in (health. This
idea of the
personality
of
wonderful vitality, and is one that will not easily be banished from medicine. It still lingers in pathology, in which heterologous processes and products are spoken of as if they were something essentially different in land, as well as in degree, diseases
has
a
from the processes and products of health. We have learnt to discard entities from science, and to content ourselves with investigating and comparing phenomena as the expressions of various enernow
gies the
motion, special characteristics or
modes of
and with
formulating as
of these
laws
The law
energies. convertibility of physical forces, as expounded by Grove and others, has supplied in physics a principle embracing all the minor changes
of correlation and
mutual
inorganic matter is liable, similar to the law gravitation as including the relations and motions
to which
of
of
deal with
masses.
exact methods of research ; and that the modes of motion?the energies?which underlie the former are
cal activity, and is capable of application to every branch of physiological inquiry. The impulse and shape which
by Carpenter and others to vital phenomena, and the science of physiology can now be cultivated under the guidance of a principle which embraces every description of physiologiThis law has been extended
August 1,
this
1878.]
On the
one
imparted
has
theory
THE HEALTH OF CALCUTTA DURING THE 2nd QUARTER OF 1878. 217
to
physiology
the fact that vital
hand,
is immense.
energies
are
con-
vertible into physical energies?mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical?has given physiologists a power of investigating and measuring vital phenomena, of describing them with precision, and of comparing them with each other, which is gradually converting phyan exact science. On the other hand, the vital fact that energies, such as development and nutrition, are correlated to physical forces?are really the result of conversion of physical into vital modes of
into
siology
motion?has enabled physiologists to study the conditions on which vital phenomena depend and to define them with a precision hitherto unknown. The same law is
sound facts and broad principles are emerging slowly but surely out of the mist of ignorance. Here again tbe thermometer, dynamometer, galvanometer, chemical analysis and other instruments of precision are, under the of conversion of forces, substituting definite facts for hazy indefinite speculation. The laws of drugaction will eventually depend upon exact researches, but the process is necessarily a slow one. Meantime men in the ardent thirst for finality and unification will not wait, and the same process of deification, of manu-
large theory
facture of
siology
entities, which
and
refuge as
did
in our
the
varying only in degree and relativity according to varying conditions of life, has effectually
action which
the
are
same
in kind,
banished the old notions that diseases are entities and diseased activities unique. The idea has been
diligently followed up, and pathological changes are recognized as being subject to the same laws and
now
methods of
inquiry as in physiology ; pathological processes being accounted the homologues of physiological. The best illustration of the application of the physiological method to disease-action is the use in medicine of the thermometer.
It is difficult to the benefit to medical science which
over-estimate
"VVundePvLich has conferred
by his demonstration practical medicine.
of the
value of the thermometer in
We degrees of heat?convert into foot will?the intensity of a great variety of
can now measure
founds if
we
pathological
disturbances which by
thermal energy the in
in
are
of
conversion
hands another and most useful
rately measuring vital
into
being appraised by
Similarly chemistry
thermometer.
our
capable
forces which
are
has
means
placed
of
capable
accu-
of
con-
version into chemical energy, an analysis of tissues, secretions and excretions indicating the kind and amount of .vital action or disturbance which has taken The power which the chemical analysis of urino has given us in the detection and treatment of disease is
place.
the best
example of this.
suring the intensity of
The
use
of instruments
electrical energy
promises
mea-
to
place
hands another faculty of subjecting vital disturbances to accurate researclu The science of therapeu-
iu
our
tics still tists
ledge
lags behind.
The most advanced therapeuto lead this branch of medical knowinto the same fold as physiology and pathology,
are
striving
and of late years
an
immense amount of
good and
sound
by physical and physiological methods has been made concerning the manner in which vital energies
research
generally are as
and
modified
particular descriptions
by drugs.
of vital energy
The science of
drug-action,
cultivated in this manner, is still in its infancy, but
is
resorted to in
theorists in the absence of
working its way into pathology. Virchow's grand genephysiological and pathological processes
ralization that
pathology,
has been banished from
facts
ciples.
spiritualism forefathers and
the
phytherapeutics ;
positive discovery taking and
transcendentalism
; the imagination supplying creative faculty the prin-
Thus has arisen
pretend
a crop of theories of drugto formulate absolute and univer-
principal are known as allopathy, antipathy, homoeopathy, organopathy and dipathy, and the applications of these notions in practice are dignified by the names of allopraxy, antipraxy, homceopraxy and dipraxy. These various pathies and praxies medical science, which have are the false gods of sal laws. Of these the
taken the place of the animce and arcliei of ?idola whose
worship
every scientific
physiology therapeutist is
bound to abhor and denounce. We hold that the influence of any of the pathies is obstructive to the progress of true science, and we regret to observe the tendency that exists to formulate therapeutical laws before the science is ripe for them. The only general law we should incline to admit as yet in therapeutics is the law that places it in the same category of thought and enquiry as physiology and pathology, the law of correlation of vital and physical forces. Much has already been done on this basis, and much more is doing. We shall in time come to understand more clearly than we do how medicinal and other agents and agencies modify the vital energies in health and disease, and be enabled to apply them with intelligence, prescience and power. Meantime we must content ourselves with partial and empirical notions provisionally
grouping what we know of study and use.
of
drug-action
for convenience
