We all walked to the door, and ventured to oppose the
doctor's prescription, suggesting that the copious evacuations he had
already experienced, might make bleeding useless, if not dangerous.
"How little like a man of sense you speak," said the other; "how readily
you have chimed in with the prejudices of the vulgar! I should have
expected better things from you: but the sway of empiricism is destined
yet to have a long struggle before it receives its final overthrow. I
have attacked it with success in many quarters; but when it has been
prostrated in one place, it soon rises up in another. Have you, my good
friend, seen my last essay on morbid action?"
The Brahmin replied, that he had not yet had an opportunity of meeting
with it.
"I am sorry you have not," said the other. "I have there completely
demonstrated that disease is an unit, and that it is the extreme of
folly to divide diseases into classes, which tend but to produce
confusion of ideas, and an unscientific practice. Sir," continued he, in
a more animated tone, "there is a beautiful simplicity in this theory,
which gives us assurance of its conformity to nature and truth. It needs
but to be seen to be understood--but to be understood, to be approved,
and carried into successful operation."
The Brahmin asked him if this unit did not present different symptoms on
different occasions.
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