Lectures on diet and regimen : being a systematic inquiry into the most rational means of preserving health and prolonging life. Together with physiological and chemical explanations, calculated chiefly for the use of families; in order to banish the prevailing abuses and prejudices in medicine / by A. F. M. Willich.

Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on diet and regimen : being a systematic inquiry into the most rational means of preserving health and prolonging life. Together with physiological and chemical explanations, calculated chiefly for the use of families; in order to banish the prevailing abuses and prejudices in medicine / by A. F. M. Willich. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    and particularly thofc which have the greateft fliare of probability in their favour. Some of the ancient naturalifls have fearched for the firft germ of the embryo, not within the bodies of the parents, but abfolutely in external objedts i while they maintained, that it is introduced from without, either by the air, or particular arti- cles of nouriniment; and, if it happen to meet with a body qualified to accomplifli its formation, it then receives life and grows ; but, in the contrary cafe, it pafles away unchanged. This whimfical conjefture is undcfervedly tranfmitted to our times, by the name panjpermia,—it does not deferve to be refuted, as it is founded on no obfervations, and is totally inconfiftent with experience. “ By another hypothefis {generatio aquivoca\ it was affertcd, that a variety of infefts, and even of the fmaller animals, may originate from extraneous fubftances, by mere fermentation and putrefadblon, without previous generation, or any intercourfe of males and females.—Thus maggots were faid to arife from putrifying meat, and in wounds j fleas to grow in urine and feces, &c. But more accu- rate obfervations have inftrufted us, that fuch ver- min are then only generated in putrefcible bodies, when the eggs of thofe infedts, which^ feed upon putrid fubflances, have been there previoufly dc- pofited.—Yet there is a certain kind of minute animals, which feem to receive life merely from the vivifying powers of nature, being bred in fub- 15 ftances