Divided Legacy, Volume IV: A History of the Schism in Medical Thought

Divided Legacy (Vols. I-IV) is a history of Western medical philosophy from the time of Hippocrates to the twentieth century, treating it as a unified system of thought rather than a series of fortuitous discovers. Dr. Coulter interprets the development of medical ideas as the product of a conflict between two opposed systems of thought, Empiricism and Rationalism.

This fourth and final volume of Divided Legacy continues the analysis of the spectacular theoretical clashes between Empiricism and Rationalism which have dominated the history of medicine since ancient times. Bringing to bear richly referenced English, French, German and American source material, including many neglected homeopathic and allopathic works from the nineteenth century onward, Coulter sets forth the varying attitudes of major thinkers to the germ theory of disease. He describes the originality of Pasteur, shows the conflicting Empirical and Rationalist views of immunization, sets forth Paul Ehrlich’s views on pharmacology, and gives detail on the major debates about infectious disease which are the foundation not only of allopathy but also of homeopathy, osteopathy, naturopathy, and chiropractic.