e without common sense, he treats a fever, but not
this man's fever. If he has common sense without science, he treats this
man's fever without knowing the general laws that govern all fevers and
all vital movements. I 'll tell you what saves these last fellows. They
go for weakness whenever they see it, with stimulants and strengtheners,
and they go for overaction, heat, and high pulse, and the rest, with
cooling and reducing remedies. That is three quarters of medical
practice. The other quarter wants science and common sense too. But the
men that have science only, begin too far back, and, before they get as
far as the case in hand, the patient has very likely gone to visit his
deceased relatives. You remember Thomas Prince's "Chronological History
of New England," I suppose? He begins, you recollect, with Adam, and has
to work down five thousand six hundred and twenty-four years before he
gets to the Pilgrim fathers and the Mayflower. It was all very well,
only it did n't belong there, but got in the way of something else. So
it is with "science" out of place. By far the larger part of the facts
of structure and function you find in the books of anatomy and physiology
have no immediate application to the daily duties of the practitioner.
You must learn systematically, for all that; it is the easiest way and
the only way that takes hold of the memory, except mere empirical
repetition, like that of the handicraftsman. Did you ever see one of
those Japanese figures with the points for acupuncture marked upon it?

--I had to own that my schooling had left out that piece of information.

Well, I 'll tell you about it. You see they have a way of pushing long,
slender needles into you for the cure of rheumatism and other complaints,
and it seems there is a choice of spots for the operation, though it is
very strange how little mischief it does in a good many places one would
think unsafe to meddle with. So they had a doll made, and marked the
spots where they had put in needles without doing any harm. They must
have had accidents from sticking the needles into the wrong places now
and then, but I suppose they did n't say a great deal about those. After
a time, say a few centuries of experience, they had their doll all
spotted over with safe places for sticking in the needles. That is their
way of registering practical knowledge: We, on the other hand, study the
structure of the body as a whole, systematical