reaffirm, even though he may not know just how. One may be sure that facts so read will make good what is expected of them; that only that will be seen which will sustain its expected function; that every aspect noted will be dutifully loyal to the revelation in whose favor the observer is predisposed: the human mind is so constituted.
It is precisely the function of scientific method—in social life, politics, engineering, medicine—to get rid of such hindrances to clear thought and effective action. For it, comprehensive summaries are situate in the future, not in the past; we shall attain them, if at all, at the end of great travail; they are not lightly to be assumed prior to the beginning. Science believes slowly; in the absence of crucial demonstration its mien is humble, its hold is light. "One should not teach dogmas; on the contrary, every utterance must be put to the proof, One should not train disciples but form observers : one must teach and work in the spirit of natural science."[1]
Scientific medicine therefore brushes aside all historic dogma. It gets down to details immediately. No man is asked in whose name he comes—whether that of Hahnemann, Rush, or of some more recent prophet. But all are required to undergo rigorous cross-examination. Whatsoever makes good is accepted, becomes in so far part, and organic part, of the permanent structure. To plead in advance a principle couched in pseudo-scientific language or of extra-scientific character is to violate scientific quality. There is no need, just as there is no logical justification, for the invocation of names or creeds, for the segregation from the larger body of established truth of any particular set of truths or supposed truths as especially precious. Such segregation may easily invest error with the sanctity of truth; it will certainly result in conferring disproportionate importance upon the fact or procedure marked out as of pivotal significance. The tendency to build a system out of a few partially apprehended facts, deductive inference filling in the rest, has not indeed been limited to medicine, but it has nowhere else had more calamitous consequences.
The logical position of medical sectarians to-day is self-contradictory. They have practically accepted the curriculum as it has been worked out on the scientific basis. They teach pathology, bacteriology, clinical microscopy. They are thereby committed to the scientific method; for they aim to train the student to ascertain and interpret facts in the accepted scientific manner. He may even learn his sciences in the same laboratory as the non-sectarian. But scientific method cannot be limited to the first half of medical education. The same method, the same attitude of mind, must consistently permeate the entire process. The sectarian therefore in effect contradicts himself when, having pursued or having agreed to pursue the normal scientific curriculum with his student for two years, he at the beginning of the third year produces a novel principle and requires that thenceforth the student effect a compromise between science and revelation.
- ↑ Johannes Orth: Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, vol. xliii. p. 818.
