Second Report of Private Medical Practice for 1841

C. Cowan
1843 BMJ (Clinical Research Edition)  
resemblance between that great man's theoriesEand mine tbat I consider myself as the mere executor of what he has planned. Caron in 1811, and Broussais a few years later, assumed a much easier mode of classification; denegation was their sheet-anchor. In syphilis, according to Broussais, there exists no virus, no morbid poison, and the therapeutics has only to measure and restrain the various degress of irritation ; and yet, some men of the " so-called" physiological school, carried away by the
more » ... strength of facts, -which are " stubborn things," freely exhibit mercury as a specific in these " irritations!" You perceive, Gentlemen, that since some thousands of years syphilis has worn the garb of the most influential doctrines, whlich have, in rotation, set "the fashion" in pathology; the humorists at one time, the solidists at another, have invested venereal diseases with their own modish robes; and the self-christened " physiologists" have clad them, in their turni, in a short coat of their own making, which, unfortunately, has left syphilis shamefully exposed. At the close of this, our first meeting, we must request vou all, Gentlemen, to examine our patients with the assistance of your owIn senses, and not to rely exclusively upon our words. It shall be my endeavour, in the course of these lectures, to avoid the moving sand of theory, and, also, too frequent reference to authors; our unchangeable motto shall be, "Facts, not names." SECOND REPORT OF
doi:10.1136/bmj.s1-6.137.124 fatcat:rz6i4rr3avaxjnptfyuwgcd45u