If Naturphilosophie promised to transform medicine into a true Wissenschaft, it was a decidedly odd brand of medical science that would emerge from the metamorphosis. For Naturphilosophie treated medicine in a way that was virtually oblivious to the practical concerns and social milieu that physicians confronted in their everyday working lives. That was part of its attraction: its siren call was the unity of knowledge through a transcendental poetics of life, with Schelling and his followers playing the role of bards who would sing its truths. But to physicians who did not seek to pursue a larger vision of Wissenschaft, and who identified more with medicine as healing than with the avant-garde of Jena Romanticism, the pretensions of the Naturphilosophen were not merely by degrees silly or outrageous, they were also fundamentally inimical to the true nature of medicine and medical science. Partly in response to the Naturphilosophen, but partly too as their own contribution to shaping public consciousness about the profession, these physicians gave voice to a different version of medicine, one emphasizing its healing mission.

This chapter will explore that alternative vision for medicine, as seen through the writings of physicians who in no way sympathized or identified with the aims of the Naturphilosophen. The picture that emerges from these sources consists of three intimately connected elements: first, a justification of the dignity and social worth of the profession; second, an epistemology of medical practice; and finally, a program of medical education.