In times beyond the reach of history, the medicinal application of
substances could have arisen from no other source than accident. Among
articles of the materia medica of known origin, we are indebted to
accident for some of the most precious.
Accident is every day presenting to different individuals the spectacle
of phænomena, arising from uncommon quantities of drugs on the one
hand, and on the other, from uncommon conditions of the system, where
ordinary powers only have been knowingly or recently applied. What is
said of drugs may be extended to natural agents and mental affections.
From conversation with a variety both of medical practitioners and
unprofessional observers, the author of this proposal is persuaded
that such authentic occurrences only, as have presented themselves to
persons now living would, if they could be brought together, compose
a body of fact, so instructive to the philosopher, and useful to the
physician, that he despairs of finding a term worthy to characterize
it.
In some cases, the influence of unsuspected powers would be detected.
In others, resources available to the purpose of restoring health in
desperate situations would be directly presented, or could be detected
by a short and easy process of reasoning. Some anomalous observations,
by shewing the absence or agency of contested causes, would perform
the office of _experimenta crucis_—Unusual affections occur of which
an exact account would be among the means of removing from physic its
opprobrious uncertainty: for this uncertainty frequently depends upon
our inability to distinguish the subtler differences in cases which
resemble each other in their grosser features.
No striking fact can be accurately stated, in conjunction with its
antecedent and concomitant circumstances, without improving our
acquaintance with human nature. Our acquisitions in this most important
branch of knowledge, may be compared to a number of broken series, of
which we have not always more than one or two members. But every new
accession bids fair to fill up some deficiency; and a large supply
would contribute towards connecting series apparently independent, and
working up the whole into one grand all-comprehending chain.
There are complaints, and those by far too frequent, where no known
process has a claim to the title of _remedial_. Here the whole chance
of preservation depends on the physician’s capacity for bringing
together facts that have heretofore stood remote. But no power of
combination can avail where there are no ideas to combine.
Every new observation therefore, may be considered as a standard trunk,
sending forth analogies as so many branches crowned with blossoms, some
of which cannot fail to be succeeded by salutary fruits. And were it
not absurd to extend the illustration of so plain a point, it might
be added, that when by the continual interposition of new trunks,
the branches are brought near together, the produce of each will be
ennobled by the action of their respective principles of fecundation.
Whenever the author has been able to obtain certain information
concerning any unusual appearance in animal nature, it has been his
custom to preserve it; and among his papers he has memorandums which
prove that to our present circumscribed ideas concerning the dose of
medicines may be sometimes imputed failures in practice; that certain
signs are not to be taken in the received signification; and that many
measures are adopted or omitted to the detriment of invalids, because
it is assumed that circumstances are necessarily connected which may
exist separately, or that one given natural operation is inconsistent
with another, to which it may really be synchronous or next in order.
Assiduous observation of the daily states of the human microcosm will
be the unfailing consequence of attention to its striking phænomena.
Such is the progress of curiosity. Such the origin of all the sciences.
The more uniformly clear the sky under which they tended their flocks,
the less likely were the shepherds of Chaldæa, to found the science of
the stars. And however the disposition to study astronomy might have
been strengthened by the coincidence between the heliacal rising of
Sirius and the overflowing of the Nile, it must, I conceive, have been
awakened by the aspect of meteors and eclipses.
Whatever minute and authentic information this imperfect statement
may produce, as soon as it shall amount to a certain mass, the author
will present it to the public arranged. He flatters himself that no
correspondent will eke out by supposition the defect of genuine
observation, without clearly distinguishing the one from the other.
He still more confidently hopes that none will be instigated by this
advertisement to exercise his invention in the manner of Psalmanasar
and Chatterton. Whether any literary forgery can be innocent is
questioned—but a forged medical report is a drawn dagger which the
arm of a credulous physician may any day plunge into the heart of his
defenceless patient. The author has heard some inconsiderate wits avow,
that they have transmitted to the venders of quack medicines imaginary
cures, attested by fictitious signatures; and it is not without
apprehension from the propensity of men to display ingenuity and to
relate wonders that he announces the present design. But he shall be on
his guard, and hopes to baffle attempts at imposition.
THOMAS BEDDOES.
RODNEY-PLACE, Clifton, June 1800.