On diet and regimen in sickness and health : and on the interdependence and prevention of diseases and the diminution of their fatality / by Horace Dobell.

  • Dobell, Horace, 1828-1917.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On diet and regimen in sickness and health : and on the interdependence and prevention of diseases and the diminution of their fatality / by Horace Dobell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    surdly superficial and incorrect. He will not, then, refuse to benefit his patient by the use of the one remedy because he cannot explain its action, or of the other because it appears to act by similarity, or of a third because he thinks it acts by contrariety. Again, he knows that the same disease may assume such different phases, in different con- stitutions, at different times and in different places, that in one case it may require stimulation, in another deple- tion, that at one period of the same case, water treatment may be advisable, at another gymnastic, at another mechanical, at another climatic. And he claims these, and all other means beneficently placed within our reach which can protect health or benefit the sick, as the legiti- mate weapons in the armoury of rational medicine. Every theory, every system, every dogma, must give place, at last, before the fact, once unquestionably proved, that such or such a remedy is best for such or such an occasion. Therefore, in my opinion, all men who pin their faith on narrow dogmas, stamp themselves thereby as unfit for the practice of rational medicine.