The Project Gutenberg EBook of Medical Essays, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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Title: Medical Essays

Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Last Updated: February 11, 2009
Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #2700]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEDICAL ESSAYS ***

Produced by David Widger

MEDICAL ESSAYS

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

1842-1882

CONTENTS:

I. HOMEOPATHY AND ITS KINDRED DELUSIONS

II. THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF PUERPERAL FEVER

III. CURRENTS AND COUNTER-CURRENTS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE

IV. BORDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOME PROVINCES OF MEDICAL SCIENCE

V. SCHOLASTIC AND BEDSIDE TEACHING

VI. THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN MASSACHUSETTS

VII. THE YOUNG PRACTITIONER

VIII. MEDICAL LIBRARIES

IX. SOME OF MY EARLY TEACHERS

PREFACE.

The character of the opposition which some of these papers have met with
suggests the inference that they contain really important, but unwelcome
truths. Negatives multiplied into each other change their sign and
become positives. Hostile criticisms meeting together are often
equivalent to praise, and the square of fault-finding turns out to be
the same thing as eulogy.

But a writer has rarely so many enemies as it pleases him to believe.
Self-love leads us to overrate the numbers of our negative constituency.
The larger portion of my limited circle of readers must be quite
indifferent to, if not ignorant of, the adverse opinions which have been
expressed or recorded concerning any of these Addresses or Essays now
submitted to their own judgment. It is proper, however, to inform
them, that some of the positions maintained in these pages have been
unsparingly attacked, with various degrees of ability, scholarship,
and good-breeding. The tone of criticism naturally changes with local
conditions in different parts of a country extended like our own, so
that it is one of the most convenient gauges of the partial movements in
the direction of civilization. It is satisfactory to add, that the views
assailed have also been unflinchingly defended by unsought champions,
among the ablest of whom it is pleasant to mention, at this moment of
pol