An essay on the comparative merits of artificial and natural classification, as applied to diseases of the skin ... / [John Paget].

  • Paget, John, 1808-1892.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the comparative merits of artificial and natural classification, as applied to diseases of the skin ... / [John Paget]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/54 (page 25)
    In the nomenclature, M. Alibert has differed in many re¬ spects from that of Willan, and we think generally with reason. In the first work * of M. Alibert, few but the vulgar names were applied to the diseases figured and described ; the object was then only the establishment of species and genera, but those now used are, wherever it was possible, derived immediately from the Greek or Latin authorities. We do not pretend to so much critical knowledge of the fathers of medicine, as would enable us to say, whether the English or French master has most closely adhered to the original application of the terms employed ; but we can say that M. Alibert has been particu¬ larly happy in appropriating names strikingly expressive of some prominent character of the disease, and therefore probably cor¬ respondent to their primitive acceptation. We feel assured, that the restoration of the word lep?~a to a group of diseases approach¬ ing at least more than any others of which we at present know, to that described by the Jewish writers, will be hailed as a boon as well by the biblical critic and the man of letters, as by the scientific physician. We shall now proceed to notice some of the objections which may be urged to the application of a natural method to diseases of the skin, and examine the justice of some of the strictures we have already heard expressed on that of M. Alibert. The most serious objection, and that most commonly urged to natural classification, in relation to diseases, that it is inap¬ plicable, we shall take for granted that we have already over¬ turned in the former part of this essay, at least in as far as it relates to that part of the subject now at issue. The objection which appears to us most weighty, is, the difficulty which a natural method presents to the beginner in his search for the name of a disease. Were dermatology a science of as great extent as botany, we should allow that this was a capital ob¬ jection to the adoption of a natural method, as a means of ac¬ quiring the first rudiments of knowledge, supposing the student to be quite unaided in the attempt ; since it would be impossi¬ ble to form, as Jussieu has done in botany, a system which should be in harmony with the method. The reason of this is evident, the characters of most importance are not universal; the Ecze- mnta are characterized by acute inflammation, pain, and conse¬ cutive fever, the Dyschromata by a simple change in the colour¬ ing matter of the skin, without pain or other symptom. A sys¬ tem, therefore, derived from one character could never harmonize with a method drawn from the sum of the whole. Fortunately, however, our subject is not so extensive as to demand such as- * Description ties Maladies de la Peau. Paris, in folio, 180G.