The
fanciful classification of diseases into four kinds--hot, cold, moist
and dry, with the corresponding arbitrary classification of remedies to
be administered by contraries, continued to be the only recognized
theory of medicine for many centuries after the Christian era.
But Lord Bacon, amongst other branches of knowledge which he considers
ill-followed, makes especial mention of medicine, which he would submit
to the same rules of observation and experiment laid down by him for the
advancement of learning in general. With regard to it, as with regard to
the discovery of all the higher laws of nature, he considers "that men
have made too untimely a departure, and too remote a recess from
particulars." Men have hurried to conclusions, and then argued from them
as from facts. Therefore let us have no traditional theories, and make
none for ourselves but such as are revealed in the form of laws to the
patient investigator, who has "straightened and held fast Proteus, that
he might be compelled to change his shapes," and so reveal his nature.
Hence one of the aspects in which Lord Bacon was compelled to appear was
that of a destroyer of what preceded.
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