FIFTH: PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE (Continued) CHAPTER VIII MEDICINE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY As S one scans the progress of medicine during the last two centuries he cannot fail to have perceived an undercurrent of development along lines of inductive science, that has been unbroken in its flow. Now and then a remarkable genius has arisen and sought the attention of the medical student with hypotheses fanciful and fantastic, just enough to awaken a livelier interest in the occult and abstruse with which medicine must always be identified, and has succeeded for a while in confusing the minds of men as to the verities of practice; nevertheless, the confusion has been temporary, like the mists of a morning which have soon passed away and left the medical atmosphere clearer and more whole some. An instance of this kind may be observed in the irruption of John Brown at Edinburgh in the year 1735. Brown hardly deserves to be taken seriously in connection with scientific medicine, and but for the furore which he created in the medical world we should pass him by with a single paragraph. He was born in poverty, the son of humble parents. In some way he managed to acquire a primary education, and ultimately became secretary to the illustrious Cullen at the University of Edinburgh, and was finally advanced to a Chair in that celebrated institution. He was a man of genius of a certain type, of push and cheek, of quick wit and sharp repartee, and made his way to prominence by a show of learning which he did not possess. But he attracted attention and acquired a following in Edinburgh, Germany, and Italy also; and having quarrelled with his former preceptor, Cullen, he boldly advanced a new hypothesis of the theory and practice of medicine, in opposition to his great master. The hypothesis as explained and exploited by himself was simple and brought all the great problems of therapeutics, the nature of malady, and the modus operandi of medical agents within the reach of minds the most simple. Brown-the author of what was called in its brief day the "Brounonian System of Medicine" -built his system on Haller's physiology, and his discovery that irritability and contractility had some relation to vital phenomena. Brown conceived that irritability and non-irritability, excitation and non-excitation, could be used in explaining the nature and causation of disease and the adaptation of medicines to cure it. His conception of pathology, therefore, resolved itself into two opposite states of the economy, strength and weakness-sthenia and asthenia. These states of the body constituted a diathesis, to be met by medicines of repletion and depletion, as the case might be. And we must concede genius to the author who could bring the various states and conditions of the organism in disease under these two propositions in a manner so plausible as to make them appeal to the common reason of men. It is of a truth something to marvel at that one ignorant of letters, without learning, without a sound principle of science or philosophy in his head, could create such an uproar in the medical world and win so great a following as did John Brown, of Berwickshire, Scotland. It is always men thus endowed that do these things, in medicine or in theology. It was often done before Brown's day, and it has been often done since, and upon a much larger scale and upon a more ridiculous hypothesis than was Brown's, as we shall see as we approach modern medicine. We have had occasion to quote from the memoirs of Sir James Mackintosh some account of Cullen in Edinburgh; that versatile writer has given in the same volume his impressions of Brown, when in the zenith of his glory in the same city, shortly before Sir James's arrival in Edinburgh, 1784: John Brown, first a teacher then a writer of bar barous latin, as well as private secretary to Dr. Cullen, had been a teacher of medicine and the founder of a new medical system which, after being destined to "strut and fret its hour upon the stage," and after the miserable death of its author [by apoplexia in London, in 1788], excited the warmest controversies on the Continent of Europe; and combined with some of the singular novelties of philosophical speculation, lately prevalent in Germany, seems likely still to make no inconsiderable stir in the revolution of philosophy. This extraordinary man had such a glimpse into medical experience as enabled him to generalize plausibly, without knowing facts enough to disturb him by their importunate demands, which he never could have given. He derived a powerful genius from nature. He displayed an original invention in his theories, and an original fancy in his declamations. The metaphysical character of his age and nation. gave a symmetry and simplicity to his speculations unknown to former theories of medicine. He had the usual turbulence of an innovator, with all the pride of discovery, and the rage of disappointed ambition. Conscious of his great powers and very willing to forget the faults which obstructed their success, he gladly imputed the poverty in which he constantly lived to the injustice of others rather than to his own vices. His natural eloquence, stimulated by so many fierce passions, and delivered from all curb by an habitual, or rather perpetual intoxication, was constantly employed with attacks on the systems and doctrines which had been the most anciently and generally received among physicians, and especially against those teachers of medicine who were most distinguished at Edinburgh, to whom he imputed as base a conspiracy and cruel persecution as those which Rousseau ascribed to all Europe. This new doctrine had great charms for the young; it allured the speculative by its simplicity, and the indolent by its facility; it promised infallible success, with little study and experience. Both the generous and the turbulent passions of youth were flattered by an independence of established authority. The pleasures of revolt were enhanced by that hatred of their masters, as impostors, and even as tyrants, with which all the powers of Brown's invective were employed to inspire them. Scope and indulgence were given to all their passions. They had opponents to detest as well as a leader to admire without which no sect or faction will flourish much. It ought not to be omitted that some of the most mischievous and effective of the above allurements arose, not from the subject, but from the teacher. Among these every one will number personal invective. These are the sentiments of an unsympathetic critic, but they are true. Brown was born too late, or mistook his calling. The learned and judicious Bostock says of him: "What he wanted in knowledge he endeavored to supply by the force of his own genius." And that author admits that Brown was actuated by spleen against Cullen, whose pupil he had been, and by a determination to oppose his doctrines, more than from a more legitimate motive. Russell calls him the Paracelsus of Scotland. 1 Op. cit., p. 73. |