Читать книгу Pharmacologia онлайн

78 страница из 211

I cannot conclude these observations upon Mr. Brande’s attack, without expressing a deep feeling of regret, that a gentleman, whose deserved rank in society, and whose talents and acquirements must entitle him to our respect, should have condescended to countenance and encourage that vile and wretched taste of depreciating the value and importance of our most venerable institutions, and of bringing into contempt those acknowledged authorities which must always meet with the approbation of the best, and the sanction and support of the wisest portion of mankind.

And I shall here protest against the prevailing fashion of examining and deciding upon the pretensions of every medicinal compound to our confidence, by a mere chemical investigation of its composition, and of rejecting, as fallacious, every medical testimony which may appear contradictory to the results of the Laboratory; there is no subject in science to which the maxim of Cicero more strictly applies, than to the present case; let the Ultra Chemist therefore cherish it in his remembrance, and profit by its application—“Præstat Naturæ voce doceri, quam Ingenio suo sapere.”