This classification should have led to the discovery and study of remedies which act specifically upon the various textures and tissues of the body, such as the cellular, serous, mucous, parenchymatous, fibrous, gelatinous, &c., but it did not, except in the most imperfect manner—so imperfect, in fact, that most pathologists, despairing of finding such remedies, at one time sank into all the peurilities[sic – meaning puerilities] of the "expectant mode" of the French, or the nihilisms of the German.
1863, John C. Peters, F[rederick] G. Snelling, “Section I. Of Medicine as a Science and as an Art; Its Objects and Its Extent.”, in Principles and Practice of Medicine, New York, N.Y.: William Radde, […], page 124