The Advancement of Learning Page #36

The Advancement of Learning, published by Francis Bacon in 1605, is a foundational text in the history of science and philosophy. In this work, Bacon advocates for empirical research and the systematic organization of knowledge, laying the groundwork for the scientific method. The book critiques existing scholarly practices and proposes a new approach to learning based on observation and experimentation. It marks a significant shift towards modern scientific inquiry.

• Essay

								

men have found the way to reduce them to a few simple letters.  So that
it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man’s mind, but it is the
remote standing or placing thereof that breedeth these mazes and
incomprehensions; for as the sense afar off is full of mistaking, but is
exact at hand, so is it of the understanding, the remedy whereof is, not
to quicken or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object; and
therefore there is no doubt but if the physicians will learn and use the
true approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as much as the
poet saith:

    “Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus artes;
    Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.”

Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve: well
shadowed by the poets, in that they made Æsculapius to be the son of
[the] sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as the
second-stream; but infinitely more honoured by the example of our
Saviour, who made the body of man the object of His miracles, as the soul
was the object of His doctrine.  For we read not that ever He vouchsafed
to do any miracle about honour or money (except that one for giving
tribute to Cæsar), but only about the preserving, sustaining, and healing
the body of man.

(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more
professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour
having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression.  For I
find much iteration, but small addition.  It considereth causes of
diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with
the accidents; and the cures, with the preservations.  The deficiences
which I think good to note, being a few of many, and those such as are of
a more open and manifest nature, I will enumerate and not place.

(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious diligence
of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the special cases
of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they were judged by
recovery or death.  Therefore having an example proper in the father of
the art, I shall not need to allege an example foreign, of the wisdom of
the lawyers, who are careful to report new cases and decisions, for the
direction of future judgments.  This continuance of medicinal history I
find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend
to every common case, nor so reserved as to admit none but wonders: for
many things are new in this manner, which are not new in the kind; and if
men will intend to observe, they shall find much worthy to observe.

(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much deficience: for
they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and
collocations; but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts, the
secrecies of the passages, and the seats or nestling of the humours, nor
much of the footsteps and impressions of diseases.  The reason of which
omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in
the view of one or a few anatomies; but the latter, being comparative and
casual, must arise from the view of many.  And as to the diversity of
parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing of the inward parts
is as full of difference as the outward, and in that is the cause
continent of many diseases; which not being observed, they quarrel many
times with the humours, which are not in fault; the fault being in the
very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine
alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diets and medicines
familiar.  And for the passages and pores, it is true which was anciently
noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies, because they
are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open and manifest in
life: which being supposed, though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum
was by Celsus justly reproved; yet in regard of the great use of this
observation, the inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been
relinquished altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery;
but might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive,
which notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts may sufficiently
satisfy this inquiry.  And for the humours, they are commonly passed over
in anatomies as purgaments; whereas it is most necessary to observe, what
cavities, nests, and receptacles the humours do find in the parts, with
the differing kind of the humour so lodged and received.  And as for the
footsteps of diseases, and their devastations of the inward parts,
impostumations, exulcerations, discontinuations, putrefactions,
consumptions, contractions, extensions, convulsions, dislocations,
obstructions, repletions, together with all preternatural substances, as
stones, carnosities, excrescences, worms, and the like; they ought to
have been exactly observed by multitude of anatomies, and the
contribution of men’s several experiences, and carefully set down both
historically according to the appearances, and artificially with a
reference to the diseases and symptoms which resulted from them, in case
where the anatomy is of a defunct patient; whereas now upon opening of
bodies they are passed over slightly and in silence.

(6) In the inquiry of diseases, they do abandon the cures of many, some
as in their nature incurable, and others as past the period of cure; so
that Sylla and the Triumvirs never proscribed so many men to die, as they
do by their ignorant edicts: whereof numbers do escape with less
difficulty than they did in the Roman prescriptions.  Therefore I will
not doubt to note as a deficience, that they inquire not the perfect
cures of many diseases, or extremities of diseases; but pronouncing them
incurable do enact a law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from discredit.

(7) Nay further, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to
restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors; and not only when such
mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair
and easy passage.  For it is no small felicity which Augustus Cæsar was
wont to wish to himself, that same Euthanasia; and which was specially
noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after the fashion,
and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sheep.  So it is written of
Epicurus, that after his disease was judged desperate, he drowned his
stomach and senses with a large draught and ingurgitation of wine;
whereupon the epigram was made, Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas; he
was not sober enough to taste any bitterness of the Stygian water.  But
the physicians contrariwise do make a kind of scruple and religion to
stay with the patient after the disease is deplored; whereas in my
judgment they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give the
attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and agonies

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