Page:The Harveian oration delivered at the Royal College of Physicians June 26, 1889 (IA b22361285).pdf/42

 diagnostics, and who moreover have been accustomed to investigate physical phenomena, and, having thus undergone the necessary tuition, are the less likely to be led astray by false appearances and the influence of preconceived ideas. At several different periods in the progress of our art, it has been proposed, as a means of advancing therapeutical knowledge, that we should endeavour to ascertain the physiological action of drugs, and then apply them in order to repress or modify pathological activity. This method was adopted by Philenius and Serapion 300 years before Christ, and has been followed up from time to time since that date with some advantage.

The instances in which we have been thus assisted are by no means few, and I may mention, as a recent adaptation of a physiological observation to pathology, the use of sedatives as applied in accordance with our knowledge of their physiological action on the vaso-motor nerves. Notwithstanding the value of this method of procedure, it fails us in numerous cases, and we are constantly thrown back to experiment on the sick, as the more direct and the universally decisive plan of action. It is to this purely empirical