The Evolution of Modern Medicine | Page 4

from
the fearsome, superstitious mental complex of primitive man, with his
amulets, healing gods and disease demons, to the ideal of a clear-eyed
rationalism is traced with faith and a serene sense of continuity. The
author saw clearly and felt deeply that the men who have made an idea
or discovery viable and valuable to humanity are the deserving men; he
has made the great names shine out, without any depreciation of the
important work of lesser men and without cluttering up his narrative
with the tedious prehistory of great discoveries or with shrill claims to
priority. Of his skill in differentiating the sundry "strains" of medicine,
there is specific witness in each section. Osler's wide culture and
control of the best available literature of his subject permitted him to
range the ampler aether of Greek medicine or the earth-fettered schools
of today with equal mastery; there is no quickset of pedantry between
the author and the reader. The illustrations (which he had doubtless
planned as fully for the last as for the earlier chapters) are as he left
them; save that, lacking legends, these have been supplied and a few
which could not be identified have with regret been omitted. The
original galley proofs have been revised and corrected from different
viewpoints by Fielding H. Garrison, Harvey Cushing, Edward C.
Streeter and latterly by Leonard L. Mackall (Savannah, Ga.), whose
zeal and persistence in the painstaking verification of citations and
references cannot be too highly commended.
In the present revision, a number of important corrections, most of
them based upon the original MS., have been made by Dr. W.W.
Francis (Oxford), Dr. Charles Singer (London), Dr. E.C. Streeter, Mr.
L.L. Mackall and others.
This work, composed originally for a lay audience and for popular
consumption, will be to the aspiring medical student and the
hardworking practitioner a lift into the blue, an inspiring vista or
"Pisgah-sight" of the evolution of medicine, a realization of what
devotion, perseverance, valor and ability on the part of physicians have
contributed to this progress, and of the creditable part which our

profession has played in the general development of science.
The editors have no hesitation in presenting these lectures to the
profession and to the reading public as one of the most characteristic
productions of the best-balanced, best-equipped, most sagacious and
most lovable of all modern physicians.
F.H.G.
BUT on that account, I say, we ought not to reject the ancient Art, as if
it were not, and had not been properly founded, because it did not attain
accuracy in all things, but rather, since it is capable of reaching to the
greatest exactitude by reasoning, to receive it and admire its discoveries,
made from a state of great ignorance, and as having been well and
properly made, and not from chance. (Hippocrates, On Ancient
Medicine, Adams edition, Vol. 1, 1849, p. 168.)
THE true and lawful goal of the sciences is none other than this: that
human life be endowed with new discoveries and powers. (Francis
Bacon, Novum Organum, Aphorisms, LXXXI, Spedding's translation.)
A GOLDEN thread has run throughout the history of the world,
consecutive and continuous, the work of the best men in successive
ages. From point to point it still runs, and when near you feel it as the
clear and bright and searchingly irresistible light which Truth throws
forth when great minds conceive it. (Walter Moxon, Pilocereus Senilis
and Other Papers, 1887, p. 4.)
FOR the mind depends so much on the temperament and disposition of
the bodily organs that, if it is possible to find a means of rendering men
wiser and cleverer than they have hitherto been, I believe that it is in
medicine that it must be sought. It is true that the medicine which is
now in vogue contains little of which the utility is remarkable; but,
without having any intention of decrying it, I am sure that there is no
one, even among those who make its study a profession, who does not
confess that all that men know is almost nothing in comparison with
what remains to be known; and that we could be free of an infinitude of
maladies both of body and mind, and even also possibly of the
infirmities of age, if we had sufficient knowledge of their causes, and
of all the remedies with which nature has provided us. (Descartes:
Discourse on the Method, Philosophical Works. Translated by E. S.
Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Vol. I, Cam. Univ. Press, 1911, p. 120.)

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
SAIL to the Pacific with some Ancient Mariner, and traverse day by
day that silent sea until you reach a region never before furrowed by
keel where a tiny island, a mere speck on the vast ocean, has just risen
from the depths, a