Chemistry should never attempt to offer an explanation of the abnormal performances of the functions in the diseased body, since it is so unsuccessful in explaining them in the healthy state.
When it predicts what, according to its laws, must happen, then something quite different takes place ; and if the vitality overmasters chemistry in the healthy body, how much more must it do so in the diseased, which is exposed to the influence of so many more unknown forces.
And just as little should chemistry undertake to give a decision upon the suitableness or worthlessness of medicines, for it is altogether out of its sphere of vision to determine what is properly healing or hurtful, and it possesses no principle and no standard by which the healing efficacy of medicines, in different diseases, can be measured or judged of.
