JAMA Revisited September 6, 1884 val vessel from Tonquin or some port of China. But no facts were given to show that the accused vessel had actually come from a place where cholera was prevailing, or that any cases had occurred on board, either before her arrival or after- Of all the faults that characterize medical literature, those aris- wards. Next, Dr. Koch is reported as making the rather ungra- ing from hasty generalizations, by which we mean the deduc- cious remark that it was introduced by some English vessel tion of conclusions from an insufficient number or an inad- whose officers had falsified her bill of health. And finally, we equate verification of facts, are the most prominent, and have the positive and circumstantial report that the two first constitute the greatest hindrances to real progress in nearly all cases at Toulon, occurred in marines who had been em- the departments of medical science. ployed in removing some materials or rubbish from an old hulk Next in baneful influence is the adoption and treatment in the harbor which had lain undisturbed since the return from of mere opinions or even suggestions, as though they were ac- the siege of Sebastopol in 1856; it being presumed that the tual facts. From the simple facts that the elements of our food germs of the disease had been slumbering there in undis- may be arranged, chemically, into nitrogenous and carbona- turbed concealement during all the intervening twenty-eight ceous, and that the latter...