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practice of medicine, and gave his name to an epoch. The chief source of his power was in a mind singularly independent and candid, but little biassed by the theoretical notions with which physicians of his time were so pre-occupied. He could see things as they were, not as they were supposed or expected to be. He, thus, not only improved the treatment of certain diseases ; he did more — he showed by his example how such im- provements might be effected, through a constant and candid appeal to facts, and a distrust of mere doctrines or opinions. Subtle disputations, he says, " are as usefd to physicians in driving away diseases, as music is to architects in building houses "(Z). Mere opinions without facts are, he^ says, " only the shadows of the shade of reason"(»*). He proved that practical medicine could stand on its own strength, and could not be trusted when based on a crude and imperfect physiology. He proved that, in his time at least, the practical study of disease was the readiest way of advancing medicine. But induction from the results of a large experience is not the only process by which