It is in medicine that there is most pressure to find correct methods of learning from experience. And there is always money available for it. The subject matter, unfortunately, is recalcitrant; though there are true generalizations to be found, in contrast to divination or astrology, it is much harder than in astronomy to discover simple hypotheses true universally. That is what gives credibility to Cicero’s comparison of medicine with divination. As in divination, so in medicine, and especially in pharmacology, one must generalize from experience, without knowledge of underlying causes: “The
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