DISSOLUTION AND EVOLUTION AND THE SCIENCE OF MEDICINE: AN ATTEMPT TO CO-ORDINATE THE NECESSARY FACTS OF PRINCIPLES OF TREATMENT. LANE LIBRARY BY C. PITFIELD MITCHELL, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, ENGLAND; LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET. 1888. All rights reserved. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1888,1 by C. Pitfield Mitchell, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. J151 M68 1888 PREFACE. By the following pages it is proposed to disseminate some new applications of Mr. Herbert Spencer's leading generalisations. The sustaining elements of the Synthetic Philosophy are the doctrines of evolution and dissolution. The design is to inquire whether these may not be made fertilising principles for large collections of the data of pathology, and thus the means of practice for the physician and surgeon. The raw material of medical science grows with an acceleration of rate that gives acuteness to the need of great central truths about which facts may be organised. I venture to think that the doctrines of dissolution and evolution supply, in useful measure, this large and pressing want; and, contrary to all appearances, that they bear, in their present application, upon every aspect of the work of the practitioner. In substantiation thereof this volume is offered, but here the prospect must be unfolded. A multitude of facts will be seen to acquire a |