Notes on Syphilis (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 Excerpt: ...conclusion. This constitutes the very sin of the Aristotelian method, and, if followed constantly, would bring medical science into equally well-deserved disrepute, as it did the old Grecian philosophy. Still, reasoning thinking men will draw deductions; nay, more, we may venture to say that most of the brilliant discoveries of medicine have been made by following this mode of reasoning, rather than attained by the slower but surer method of induction. The chief thing to guard against in deductive reasoning is the mistaking of a mere inference for a logically proved conclusion. So long as we accurately see the direction in which our inquiries and experiments should lie that are needed to verify our conclusions, there is nothing to be deprecated in making deductions, or in publicly stating them. I make these remarks because the following paper is in great measure of this deductive character in its reasoning, and I might be blamed for drawing the public attention to it before collecting much experimental illustration of its truth or falsity. This, indeed, I should have done had my own opportunities of research been sufficiently large for the purpose; but as they are not, and as at the same time I believe the matter to be of importance, I am anxious that it should be worked out without unnecessary delay, and by many rather than by one, knowing that if untrue it will speedily come to nought, believing that if true it will prove of value to the national health. My communication consists of the statement of a case and a deduction from it. The case is as follows. On October 2nd, 1870, I saw the child of Mrs. B, --212, Stockport Road, Manchester. The child (a girl) was four months old. It was covered with syphilitic psoriasis, which had first appeared a week before...