Essays on hypochondriasis, and other nervous affections / By John Reid.

  • Reid, John, 1776-1822
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on hypochondriasis, and other nervous affections / By John Reid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/454 (page 5)
    devoted to mere manual labour, especi- ally the more indigent part of them, are, to a certain extent, distinguished by the character of their diseases, as well as that - of their other evils. They differ from the higher orders, less perhaps in the actual quantity, than in the glaring and obtru- sive color of their calamities. There is no person perhaps who is apt to form so low an estimate of the va- lue of human existence, as a medical man practising amongst the poor, especially amongst the poor of a great city. But it is not impossible that he may exaggerate the excess of their sufferings, by com- bining, as it is natural for him to do, their external state, with those feelings which he has acquired from very different circumstances and education. As the horrors of the grave affect only the living, so the miseries of poverty exist principally perhaps in the imagination of the affluent. BS