That this separation produced an apparently inextricable confusion was very natural, just as it was natural that medical sects should have been formed of which the one renounced this, the other that, and the third something else--each individual sect being distinguished by its one-sidedness. The only sect--if we may thus term the regular physicians--which at no time could be accused of one-sidedness in its proclamations was that based upon the principles of Hippocrates and the Alexandrian School--these advising practical, experimenting science, a course of reasoning which Lord Bacon in his works has approved with such justice. And how necessary it was to follow this recommendation continually and in every particular is best illustrated by showing how one branch of medical practice could fall almost into oblivion by neglect to pursue it as an _experimental_ science. For instance, in the history of Obstetrics, we find that very little was done to promote its elevation from the times of Hippocrates and Celsus until within the last one hundred and twenty years, when Pareus, Mauriceau, De la Motte, Deventer, and Justina Siegesmundin and others began to investigate it and to raise it to its proper place as a science. Until this time, the obstetric art was so entirely neglected that it was considered beneath the dignity of an honorable man. Low and uneducated persons appropriated this practice to themselves, even in cases of the greatest emergency. The degradation of this branch alone proves the need of the introduction of new ideas formed by constant observation in science at large; it also proves that we cannot abandon speculations and experiments on the natural laws which pervade all organizations; and that it is a matter of great necessity that every student of medicine should be provided with ample opportunities for so doing. And how successful and beneficent, although difficult, such reforms are, I shall illustrate by speaking again of the resurrection of obstetrical science. New life had to be introduced into it before new light could be thrown upon this field; and this new life was finally introduced when the persons just named entered upon the study. They found that midwifery as it was then practiced must be reorganized. Observations on nature needed to be made and these were to be followed by scientific analysis, and the results introduced into practice.