Page:Restorative medicine - an Harveian annual oration delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on June 21, 1871 (the 210th anniversary) (IA restorativemedic00cham).pdf/19

RESTORATIVE MEDICINE. 5 ment which owes its prevalent application to the study of morbid anatomy. The idea is, by exciting artificial discased action in parts under our control, to divert the diseased actions from a less accessible or more hazardous localization. We see before us the fact that a spontaneously gene- rated secondary disease is often rapidly followed by the cessation of a primary one, whether milder or more serious; and we infer with reason that the same result will be found if the secondary dis- ease be the consequence of a drug. This thera- peutic theory is obviously made more universally applicable by an exact determination of the parts affected, and, therefore, with the advance of morbid anatomy, has more influenced our practice. That this advance will continue, we have the guarantee of the devotion of our own Johnson, and Murchi- son, and Ogle, and Quain, and Sibson.

All rational cures seem to have resolved them- selves into these five, namely, the Cures by Elimi- nation, by Opposition of Contraries, by Assisting Nature, by Neutralization, by Counter-irritation.

But that word seems to imply change of nature rather than change of place, whereas in most of the examples of the in- fluence of this principle the curative morbid process is either identical or closely related to the ailment. 1*