A Treatise on the Eclectic Southern Practice of Medicine Page: 11 of 724
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PREFACE.
From the time of Hippocrates to the days of Galen, various
schools and theories had prevailed, all of which we do not deem
it necessary to notice. The Methodists, or rather the Methodics,
which latter term we prefer as distinguishing them from the
religious sect of the former name, far from relying too much, as
did Hippocrates, upon the curative powers of nature, rushed
into the other extreme, and taught that the efforts of nature in
disease should be positively counteracted. And to this school
we are, perhaps, indebted for the still prevailing maxim " con-
traria contrariis curantur."
Two schools of diametrically opposite principles at the same
time divided the medical world-the Dogmatists and the Em-
pyrics. The Dogmatists taught that in the treatment of a
disease we must first study its nature and causes, and apply
remedies philosophically indicated by the supposed theory to
which their previous investigations led them. The Empyrics,
on the other hand, discarding all inquiry into the origin and
cause of the malady, and the constitution or idiosyncracy of the
patient, attempted its removal by the administration of such
remedies as had heretofore been found to give relief in similar
cases, however contrary they might appear to any supposed
theory of the disease.
Of these two rival sects and their opinions, Celsus has given
us, most interesting history. He himself servilely followed
neither of them. He reverted to the Hippocratean doctrine of
the four humours, and like his great master, in the treatment of
disease was too prone to watch for and rely upon the operations
of nature herself, a practice which in acute diseases can never
be indulged in without extreme danger.11
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Massie, J. Cam. A Treatise on the Eclectic Southern Practice of Medicine, book, 1854; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143817/m1/11/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.