they formerly held, as I am afraid openly to acknowledge whatever truth there is in their views and observations. In fact, I find not only that the physicians of antiquity and the middle ages had not in all cases their senses shackled by traditional prejudices, but more than this, that among the people common sense has clung to certain truths, notwithstanding the criticism of the learned had pronounced them overthrown. What should hinder me from avowing that the criticism of the learned has not always proved correct, that system has not always been nature, and that a false interpretation does not impair the correctness of the fact? Why should I not retain good expressions, or restore them, even though false ideas have been attached to them? My experience constrains me to regard the term fluxion (active congestion—Wallung)[1] as preferable to that of congestion; I cannot help allowing inflammation to be a definite form in which pathological processes display themselves, although I am unable to admit its claims to be regarded as an entity; and I must needs, in spite of the decided counter-statements of many investigators, maintain tubercle to be a miliary granule, and epithelioma a heteroplastic, malignant new-formation (cancroid).
Perhaps it is now-a-days a merit to recognise historic rights, for it is indeed astonishing with what levity those very men, who herald forth every trifle, which they have stumbled upon, as a discovery, pass their judgment upon their predecessors. I uphold my own rights, and therefore I also recognize the rights of others. This is the principle I act upon in life, in politics and in science. We owe it to ourselves to defend our rights, for it is the only guarantee for our individual development, and for our influence upon the community at large. Such a defence is no act of vain ambition, and it involves no renunciation of purely scientific aims. For, if we would serve science, we must extend her limits, not only as far as our own knowledge is concerned, but in the estimation of others. Now this estimation depends in a great measure upon the acknowledgment accorded to our rights, upon the confidence placed in our investigations, by others; and this is the reason why I uphold my rights.
In a science so directly practical as that of medicine, and at a time
- ↑ See the Author's 'Handbuch der speciellen Path, und Therapie,' Vol. I. p. 141.
