Address in refutation of the Thomsonian system of medical practice : delivered in the lecture room of the Chester Co. Cabinet of Natural Science, West Chester, Pa., on December 31, 1836 / by Sumner Stebbins.

  • Stebbins, Sumner.
Date:
1837
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address in refutation of the Thomsonian system of medical practice : delivered in the lecture room of the Chester Co. Cabinet of Natural Science, West Chester, Pa., on December 31, 1836 / by Sumner Stebbins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ( 2«) for the light it throws upon the nature and quality of many morbific agents, which have been subjects of a vast deal of useless speculation. People have heretofore been of the opinion, that many of the most formidable disorders were propagated by a specific contagion : but if this doctrine so true, the virus of small pox, and every other in- oculating or infectious agent is nothing more nor less than the concentrated essence of cold ; the opinion of the Chem- ists that there is no such a thing as a substance called cold to the contrary notwithstanding. You have doubtless all heard of such a thing as marsh miasmata—paludal ef- fluvia,—morbific emenations—epidemic contagions,—veg- eto—animal exhalations—malaria, and other appellations which have been conferred on an invisible, intangible, ub- definable, and hitherto nnascertainable something which has been only appreciated by its effects, but which is to- tally unknown in its essence. Now it remained for a sim- ple unsophisticated child of nature, an untutored son of the Granite State, who obtained his knowledge of astrono- my as did the astrologer? of old, by laying on his back and gazing at the stars ; who acquired his knowledge of the nature of what he calls the four elements,'' by stupidly stareing at the earth and its waters, and who gained all his knowledge of the healing art at the bedside of his pa- tients, it remained for Aim to reveal the nature and prop- erties of this so much talked of malaria. He discovered, and the discovery was intuitive of course, for he says himself that he never went to school but one month in his life, he discovered that it was—cold—yes, nothing but the quint essence of cold. But unfortunately for Thomson and his system, his discoveries, all turn out to be mere sup- positions. He supposed, that heat was life;*' he supposed that cold was the cause of all disease; he supposed, that whenever there was what he calls a balance of outward and inward heat,*' there was always death in the pot; he supposed, also, that the rat that bit the man on one of his eyebrows, was mad> that his madness was caused by eating ratsbane ; and any of his suppositions is quite as rational as another. Hiisuppoiitipns, discoveries, and conclusions,