The art of preventing diseases, and restoring health : founded on rational principles, and adapted to persons of every capacity / By George Wallis.

  • Wallis, George, 1740-1802.
Date:
1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The art of preventing diseases, and restoring health : founded on rational principles, and adapted to persons of every capacity / By George Wallis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/842 (page 2)
    IXfRODUCTlON. prevcntiiii!: DKcafcs, or fliortcning their Duration, by the iilc of judicious apy)lications: indeed, of late years, their particular documents have been flndioufly conveyed in Inch a fiyle, as to be readily intelligible to common underftandings; fo that each man might become, in fomc degree, his own phy- lician. Such laudable undertakings merit the higheil praife, and. if well-condudfed, promife the mod: falutary confequences ; for there can be no doubt but the modes of preventing Difeafes, diortening their Duration, and warding off their evil tendencies by early afiidancc, arc not only the eatiefl, but the mod fafe, and pleafant. What has been written on this fubjedl may to many, perhaps, appear fufheient; and fo it probably might be, were all men’s conflitutions limilar ; for die methods advifed by many of thofe authors, arc feledfed with great judgement, and extremely well calculated to anfwcr the ends propofed, under the circumllance abo^g fpccihcd ; but there teems to be a very great defect in all the publications which have treated on thefe fubjc6ls—they give no infor- mation to their readers how the variations of con- ftitutions are to be diftinguifhed, or in what cafes the methods are properly to be altered; and with- out this, the prefcribmg of remedies can be conti- dcred little led than a fpecies of quackery, by what- ever authority it may be fandlloncd. The univcriality or generality of any medicine is an idea too al)furd for adoption, except by the children of quackery and impofition ; and certainly appropriating remedies of the fame fj3ccific nature to one complaint in all conflitutions, however dif- limilar, is, at Icafl, a brancli of the fame tree; for it is a fa<5t uncontrovertible, fupported by the foundeft experience—that what may be of great lervice to one conftitution, may to another be highly detrimental.