Lectures on the duties and qualifications of a physician / Revised and corrected by James Gregory.

  • James Gregory
Date:
1805
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the duties and qualifications of a physician / Revised and corrected by James Gregory. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ■Tiervous ailments. Although the fears of these patients are generally groundless, yet their suf- ferings are real 5 and the disease is as much seated in the constitution as a rheumatism or a dropsy. To treat their complaints with ridi- cule or negleft, from supposing them the effe£l: of a crazy imagination, is equally cruel and ab- surd. They generally arise from or are attended with bodily disorders obvious enough ; but sup- posing them otherwise, still it is the physician’s duty to do every thing in his power for the re- lief of the distressed. Disorders of the imagi- nation may be as properly the objeft of a phy- sician’s attention as those of the body; and surely they are, frequently, of all distresses the greatest, and demand the most tender sympa- thy ; but it requires address and good sense in a physician to manage them properly. If he seems to treat them slightly, or with unseason- able mirth, the patient is hurt beyond measure ; if he is too anxiously attentive to every little circumstance, he feeds the disease. For the patient’s sake therefore, as well as his own, he must
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