A letter to the critical reviewers, on the most effectual means of preventing sickness in His Majesty's fleets and diminishing the expences of maritime service / by William Renwick.

  • Renwick, William, 1740?-1814.
Date:
1794
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the critical reviewers, on the most effectual means of preventing sickness in His Majesty's fleets and diminishing the expences of maritime service / by William Renwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    more than half a century has fhown to be fo inefFeftual]. On the other hand, it is not necef- fary that a remedy ftiould be new, in order to be efficacious. To reduce the controverfy to a fingl^ obferva- tion, and at once to evince the error of tlie-ehargc that has been quoted; it is only neceffary to fub- join that although the methods in ufe for puri- fying ffiips of war—or, as you have chofen to ex- prefs it, for the precluhon of “ damp”—were al- ways as pra6licable and efficacious as they have been comprehended. Hill it muft be admitted they do not include the procefs of which the principles and operation are known to the Royal Society to be Jo ejfentially different; and with refpe6t to their utility^ it is the fame thing whether the propofal be new, or a thoufand years old. On the propofed diet to which nothing analo- gous could be adduced, you are altogether filent. That diet is not only preferable to all other re- medies for preventing fcorbutic affe61;ion (having an immediate tendency to rejolve and difeharge the faline particles by which it is occajioned), but is moreover a confiderable prefervative againft every ■fpecies of contagion. From the effect mentioned in the parenthefis, it alfo leffens the neceffity for other liquids: a circumftance favourable to the ftowage by which (hips are ufually fo much in- commoded. “ The propofal refpefling the effence of fpruce, ** would certainly be noticed by the Board to whom our author truly fays every new plan is com- F a municated,”