A narrative of the life and medical discoveries of Samuel Thomson : containing an account of his system of practice, and the manner of curing disease with vegetable medicine, upon a plan entirely new : to which is added an introduction to his New guide to health or, Botanic family physician, containing the principles upon which the system is founded, with remarks on fevers, steaming, poison, &c. / written by himself.

  • Thomson, Samuel, 1769-1843.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A narrative of the life and medical discoveries of Samuel Thomson : containing an account of his system of practice, and the manner of curing disease with vegetable medicine, upon a plan entirely new : to which is added an introduction to his New guide to health or, Botanic family physician, containing the principles upon which the system is founded, with remarks on fevers, steaming, poison, &c. / written by himself. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    to the laws of my country T could get redress; but I xrm disappointed in my expectations, for I was persuaded to leave the case to a reference, and he had raised such a strong prejudice in the minds of the people against me, that they were more ready to favour a man whom they considered great and learned, because he had been to college, than to do justice to me; so they gave the case against me, and I had to pay the cost. After this I refused to attend those people who had assisted in in- juring me, and gave them up to their fashionable doc- tors. A curse seemed to follow them and his prac- tice ; for the spotted fever prevailed in this place soon after, and the doctor took charge of those who had sid- ed with him against me, and if he had been a butcher and used the knife, there would not have been more destruction among them. Two men who swore falsely in his favour, and by whose means he got his cause, were among the first victims; and of the whole that he attended about nine tenths died^ He lost upwards of sixty patients in the town of Alstead in a short time. I attended the funeral of a young man, one of his pa- tients, who was sick but twenty-four hours, and but twelve under the operation of his medicine. He was as black as a blackberry, and swelled so as to be difficult to screw down the lid of the coffin; when I went into the room where the corpse was, the doctor followed me, and gave directions to have the coffin secured so as to prevent the corpse being seen; and then began to insult me to attract the attention of the people. He said to me, I understand, sir, that you have a patent to cure such disorders as that (pointing to the corpse.) I said no, and at the same time intimated what 1 thought of him. He put on an air of great importance, and said to me, what can you know about medicine ? you have no learn- ing ; you cannot parse one sentence of grammar. I told him I never knew that grammar was made use of as medicine; but if a portion of grammar is so much like the operation of ratsbane, as appears on this corpse, I should never wish to know the use of it. This unex- pected application of the meaning of what he said, dis- pleased this medical gentleman very much, and finding that many of the people present had the same opinioa