METHOD AND MEDICINE. An Essay. BY BALTHAZAR W. FOSTER, M.D., &c., &c., PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE IN QUEEN'S COLLEGE, LONDON: JOHN CHURCHILL & SONS, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 151. m. 164. The following paper originally appeared in a volume of Essays published by the Members of the Birmingham Speculative Club. B. W. F. METHOD AND MEDICINE. A celebrated physiologist recently began one of his lectures with the assertion that "la médecine scientifique" did not exist; and not very long after, a distinguished French surgeon expressed in the pages of the album-number of the Figaro his satisfaction at the renunciation of scientific methods in the study of surgery. Two such remarkable statements naturally excited much attention. They were greedily seized upon by sprightly journalists, whose pens, like the hands of Ishmael of old, waging war against every one, rejoiced to find in the unsatisfactory position of medicine a suitable object for attack. Paris soon knew all these writers could tell of the shortcomings of medicine, and the bruit of the discussion reached even London ears. Medical questions always excite a certain amount of general interest, and for the more curious portion of the public they possess a |