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Introduction to

the Study of Experimental Medicine

In his major discourse on the scientific method,

An Introduction to

the Study of Experimental Medicine

(1865), Bernard described what

makes a scientific theory good and what makes a scientist important, a true

discoverer. Unlike many scientific writers of his time, Bernard wrote about his

own experiments and thoughts, and used the first person.

What makes a

important, he states, is how well he or she has penetrated into the unknown. In

areas of science where the facts are known to everyone, all scientists are more

or less

—we cannot

know who is great. But in the area of science that is still obscure and unknown the great

are recognized: "They are marked by ideas which light up phenomena

hitherto

and carry science ."

It is through the

method that science is carried forward—not through uncritically accepting the

authority of academic or scholastic sources. In the experimental method,

reality is our

only authority. Bernard writes with scientific fervor "

When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept

the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great

names and generally accepted."

Experimental science is a constant interchange between theory and fact. Reasoning

from the particular to the general, or reasoning from the general to the

particular, are never truly separate. A general theory and our theoretical

deductions from it must be

with specific experiments designed to confirm or deny their

; while these particular

experiments may lead us to formulate new theories.

The scientist tries to determine the relation between a "natural

phenomenon" with its "immediate cause". We formulate hypotheses

elucidating, as we see it, this relation. We test the hypotheses. And when a

hypothesis is

it is a scientific theory. "Before that we have only groping and

empiricism."

Bernard explains what makes a theory good or bad scientifically: "Theories are only hypotheses,

verified by more or less numerous facts. Those verified by the most facts are

the best, but even then they are never final, never to be absolutely believed." When have we verified that we have found a cause? Bernard states: "Indeed, proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a

phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is

the immediate cause of that phenomenon. It must still be established that when

this condition is

the phenomenon will no longer appear." We must always try to disprove our own theories. "We can solidly

settle our ideas only by trying to destroy our own conclusions by

-experiments." What

is observably true is the only authority. If through experiment, you contradict

your own conclusions — you must accept the contradiction — but only on one

condition: that the contradiction is PROVED.

In the study of disease, "the real and effective cause of a disease

must be constant and determined, that is, unique; anything else would be a

denial of science in medicine." In fact, a "very frequent application

of mathematics to biology [is] the use of

averages"—that is,

—which may give

only "apparent accuracy". Sometimes averages do not give the kind of

information needed to save lives. For example, a

great surgeon performs operations for stone by a single method; later he

makes a statistical summary of deaths and recoveries, and he concludes from

these statistics that the mortality law for this operation is two out of five.

Well, I say that this

means literally nothing scientifically and gives us no certainty in performing

the next operation; for we do not know whether the next case will be among the

or the deaths.

What really should be done, instead of gathering facts empirically, is to study

them more accurately, ….to discover in them the cause of

accidents so as to

master the cause and avoid the accidents.

The "philosophic spirit", writes Bernard, is always active in

its desire for truth. It stimulates a "kind of thirst for the

unknown" which ennobles and enlivens science—where, as experimenters, we

need "only to stand face to face with nature". The minds that

are great "are never self-satisfied, but still continue to

strive."

Meanwhile, there are those whose "minds are bound and

cramped". They oppose discovering the unknown (which "is

generally an unforeseen relation not included in theory") because they do

not want to discover anything that might

their own theories. Bernard calls them

"despisers of their fellows" and says "the dominant idea of

these despisers of their fellows is to find others' theories faulty and try to

contradict them." They are deceptive, for in their experiments they

report only results that make their theories seem correct and suppress results

that support their

In this way, they "falsify science and the facts".

They make poor observations, because they choose among the results of their

experiments only what suits their object, neglecting whatever is unrelated to

it and carefully setting

everything which might tend toward the idea they wish to combat.

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English Intermediate Online Courses 1- History of Science

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