Excerpt from An Address Read Before the Tennessee Medical Society, at Its Twenty-Third Session

The subject I have selected may seem a little strange, and the views which I shall offer will be found not to take the 'beaten-track.' I have no pack-horse to drive that cannot turn either to the right or the left - feeling free from all such restraints I shall move in all directions and through all kinds of by-paths. It certainly accords best with the principles and designs of this society not to trudge along the beaten way, over which so many have gone along with almost use less repetition, but to turn off in all directions whithersoever any thing new or valuable may offer itself, and bring all such materials at once before the society in such a way as to test, their value.

I will now propose' my subject - The varieties of diseases of the same species. Diversity as well as sim ilarity is a law of diseases and should receive even para mount consideration. Whatever scientific advantage may have been gained by a nosological classification of diseases has been more than counterbalanced by the practical evil which it has occasioned; to say the least, practice has gained but little by it, on the contrary, it has in many instances suffered loss.

Systematic writers, intent on classifying diseases accord ing to their outward signs of relationship, have greatly overlooked, or viewed with too little concern, the great field now presented, the varieties of the same disease - requiring for their production many general and local causes, acting sometimes from without and sometimes from within - engen dering varieties of the same disease almost as distinct from each other as are diseases of different classes. This is a broad proposition, one to which wordy nosology may object, but which sound practice must ever admit, for diseases of the same species often differ more in a practical point of view than do those of even different classes. Scientific ar rangements of diseases do not teach us how to cure them, nor indeed in the present state of medical science should it presume to do so. Then allow me to say that as medical science is at fault in that respect, let it be rather content with teaching us how it is that we cure any disease so that we may begin to regard our actually successful practice ra tionally as well as experimentally. Theoretical researches would then be confided in according to the rationale of known results. This would be a safe way - even false rea soning and erroneous conclusions would not effect known practical results; and if any errors obtained, they would be errors only of explanation. I would much prefer that the medical philosopher would explain to me the ra tionale of certain palpable cures, than to presume to teach me how to cure diseases according to a series of reasons assigned apart from practical experience.

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