INTRODUCTION.

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chance or of necessity, and have been usually opposed by the Fac-ulty, till every one else was convinced of their importance. Animplicit faith in the opinions of teachers, an attachment to systemsand established forms, and the dread of reflections, will always op-erate upon those who follow Medicine as a trade. Few improve-ments are to be expected from a man who might ruin his charac-ter and family by even the smallest deviation from an establishedrule.

If men of letters, says the author of the performance quotedabove, were to claim their right of inquiry into a matter that sonearly concerns them, the good effects in Medicine would soon ap-pear. Such men would have no separate interest from that of theart. They would detect and expose assuming Ignorance underthe mask of Gravity and Importance, and would be the judges andpatrons of modest merit. Not having their understandings per-verted in their youth by false theories, unawed by authority, andunbiassed by interest, they would canvass with freedom the mostuniversally received principles in Medicine, and expose the uncer-tainty of many of those doctrines, of which a physician dares notso much as seem to doubt.

No argument, continues he, can be brought against laying openMedicine, which does not apply with equal, if not greater force, toreligion ; yet experience has shown, that since the laity bave assert-ed their right of inquiry into these subjects, Theology, considered asa science, has been improve, the interests of real religion have beenpromoted, and the clergy have become a more learned, a more use-ful, and a more -respectable body of men, than they ever were inthe days of their greatest power and splendour.

Had other medical writers been as honest as this gentleman, theart had been upon a very different footing at this day. Most ofthem extol the merit of those men who brought Philosophy out ofthe schools, and subjected it to the rules of common sense. Butthey never consider that Medicine, at present, is in nearly the samesituation that Philosophy was at that time, and that it might be asmuch improved by being treated in the same manner. Indeed, noscience can either be rendered rational or useful, without beingsubmitted to the common sense and reason of mankind. Thesealone stamp a value upon science ; and what will not bear the testof these ought to be rejected.

I know it will be said, that diffusing medical knowledge amongthe people might induce them to tamper with Medicine,"and to trustto their own skill, instead of calling a physician. The reverse ofthis, however, is true. Persons who have most knowledge in thesematters, are commonly most ready both to ask and follow advice,when it is necessary. The ignorant are always most apt to tam-per with Medicine, and have the least confidence in physicians.Instances of this are daily to be met with among the ignorant peas-ants, who, while they absolutely refuse to take a medicine whichhas been prescribed by a physician, will swallow with greedinessany thing that is recommended to them by their credulous neigh-bours. Where men will act even without knowledge, it is certain-ly more rational to afford them all the light we can, than to leavethem entirely in the dark,