It is unnecessary for me to go into the history of the humoral pathology, as held by physicians for so many centuries, with their crude and erroneous ideas, as well as the opposite doctrine which followed, i. e., that all morbid processes originated in the solids.
The latter as an exclusive theory is equally absurd. Thos. Watson, after speaking of the two above named theories, says: "The pendulum of opinion swung at once, as is usual, into the opposite extreme of error. It is now settling in our time at the juster medium. Reviewing, under new and more faithful evidence, the humored doctrine again asserts its rightful, but modified claims upon our acceptance. That its old extravagances still find favor among the ignorant, and are commonly adopted by the quack, are circumstances which illustrate the fact that the mischievous influence of unsound theories survived the duration of the theories themselves.