Abstract

Physicians in early nineteenth century France are repeatedly alarmed about the contemptible persistence of «popular errors» in medicine in spite of the new and definitive trend «observation» and «experience» have imposed to the hole natural sciences. Their mordant critics concern both «vulgar ideas» and «vulgar expressions» which corrupt and dishonour the study of visible facts. But at the same time, and in a very contradictory way, some of them, particularly in the field of medical specialties that have to deal with invisible objects, have recourse to the same «popular» language and conceptions as natural evidences of their conjectures and hypotheses.