A Treatise on the Eclectic Southern Practice of Medicine Page: 23 of 724

PREFACE.

the wise physician learn ? No theory so absurd but may contain
some germ of truth, and none so well established as to com-
mand a blind obedience. No observation of facts, no applica-
tion of remedies from experience of their good effects, can make
the physician, unless he understands the physiology and patho-
logy, the constitution, construction, normal and abnormal action
of the human body. And, on the other hand, no science so
complete, no theoretical information so copious, can suffice to
form the medical character, without the strictest attention to
the most minute observation of facts and phenomena, and a just
regard to the experience of others in the application of medici-
nal agents. Truth is generally found between extremes. And
the eclectic physician, as his name, implies, culls from all theories
what they may contain of good, and, free from prejudice and
bigotry, never disdains a practice which experience and reason
have proved to be beneficial; at the same time he is no slave to
antiquity, no violent hater of novelty. He knows no dread of
innovation, simply as such, and is as ready to avail himself of
any new lights and discoveries, as he is considerate and regard-
ful of the past.
Unfortunately, there is too great a tendency in the human
family to adhere with dogmatical tenacity to old errors, rather
than search after truth, and even truth, when ascertained, is
often rejected, or with too much reluctance adopted. When
Harvey discovered, or rather demonstrated the circulation of
the blood-to which we have already had occasion to allude-
history tells us, that not a single physician in England, over
forty years of age, appreciated or acquiesced in the discovery.
Even at the present day, an old physician of high reputation,
Doctor Cartwright, of New Orleans, forgetting that a fact once

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