Some 18th century doctors such as the Bristol physician, Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808), saw laboratory medicine as ‘a great revolution'. He believed that it would give the medical profession the same ‘power' over living bodies as contemporary advances in physics and chemistry were acquiring over the physical world. In addition, many doctors were coming to believe that specific diseases needed specific remedies.

Source: Anonymous for Martin Engelbrecht (1684-1756).