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When one looks into the history of Medicine, one cannot fail to be struck with the diversity of
ways in which it has made its progress. It has been advanced as a pure inductive science, the aim of which is the establishment of Laws of Life—of life in its normal state and as disturbed by disease. Thus have been formed the sciences of
Physiology and Pathology, which constitute, to a certain extent, the basis of practical Medicine.
To a certain extent its basis — but we know that they fall far short of being its sole basis. There is much in the treatment of disease which
is neither founded on those sciences, nor deducible from them. Practical Medicine has had modes
of progress of its own. At times its advancement has been accomplished laboriously by the results of a large experience methodised into principles. At other times it has owed notable progress to the happy observation of a single fact, and its immediate application to practice. In both these ways it has advanced without the aid of Physiology. In fact, as the study of Medicine is composite, so has been its progress, now in one way and now in another, under the guidance of various minds.
