Discipline of a Gardener

For Locke, the temptation to make unwarranted speculations about disease would only be overcome when physicians embraced the inner discipline of a gardener: pruning here, training there, never making any drastic interventions, and all the while recording observations.

DYDE, Sean, 2019. Losing One’s Temper: Contingency in Early Modern Medicine. In: OMODEO, Pietro Daniel and GARAU, Rodolfo (eds.), Contingency and Natural Order in Early Modern Science.Cham : Springer International Publishing. p. 265–288. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science. ISBN 978-3-319-67378-3.

How scientific knowledge relates to medical practice is not always straightforward. On the one hand, natural philosophers deal with the universal, with what is true regardless of all circumstances; on the other hand, physicians struggle with the immediate and pressing needs of the individual patient. Yet, in Galenic medicine there were three ways of dealing with various forms of life: the notion of temperament, a fluid understanding of disease, and a rigid method of Semiotics. These three fields were interconnected; the contingencies of one were the foundations of another. Together, they bridged the gap between the universe and the patient, taming the four primary qualities of the material world for use in medical practice. Indeed, they also took on a moral dimension, providing rules of conduct to help physicians face the unknown.