On certain popular fallacies concerning the production of epidemic diseases / by Daniel Noble.

  • Noble, Daniel, 1810-1885.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On certain popular fallacies concerning the production of epidemic diseases / by Daniel Noble. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    3/24
    MANCHESTER STATISTICAL SOCIETY. On certain Popular Fallacies concerning the Production of Epidemic Diseases. By Daniel Noble, M.D., President. [Read November 14th, 1859.] With respect to all departments of investigation, and particularly of those wherein the crucial tests available in experimental physics are inapplicable, it is remarkable how, in almost every age, false theories have been propounded, and have received for long periods a more or less general assent. In dealing with problems that depend for their solution upon varied, fluctuating, and so necessarily-uncertain data, there is always abundant scope for plausible speculation. Ingenious hypotheses thus become formed, which curious and earnest minds, seizing upon partial and one-sided materials, ultimately work up into a dogma; a process which is constantly seen to be going on in the domain of political economy, in the department of what is now called social science, and in an especial manner in that division of human inquiry which comprises theories of disease. We have had protec- tionist and currency theories, theories of education and criminal legislation, and theoretical systems of practical medicine, many of which have thus developed themselves, and which yet are now admitted to have been substantially fallacious, notwithstanding that in their day they met with a certain general acceptance and advocacy. Nothing would be easier than to illustrate this statement by details, cited from the recent history of human research; but, as intelligent persons are already well-acquainted with the general fact, it need 2