Considerations on the medicinal use, and on the production of factitious airs / by Thomas Beddoes. Part II / by James Watt.

  • Beddoes, Thomas, 1760-1808.
Date:
1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Considerations on the medicinal use, and on the production of factitious airs / by Thomas Beddoes. Part II / by James Watt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    14/258 (page 14)
    • :;r;-;.-;'f %f ) <-\ ing obfervers; and thus I expeB the machina- tions of empirics and monopolifts will be defeated. II. No one will pretend that factitious airs' are inert ; and fince they have been fo freely ufed with fo little injury, may we not fafely perfevere, till their virtues be afcertained ? Is it too foon to conclude that the caution, at all times neceifary in the practice of medicine, is fufficient for the fecurity of the fick? and that any unfortunate event in future ought to be imputed to rafhnefs, to ignorance, or to one of thofe miftakes in confequence of which the nobleft remedies have fometimes proved per- nicious.'' 11 is beyemd expectation fortunate that the time of natural death fhould have in no inftance coincided with the firft administra- tion of elaftic fluids. For I faw Craft and Timidity, which formed a league to expel Peru- vian bark from the mops, to oppofe inocula- tion, and to decry the cool treatment of the fmall-pox, ready to take advantage of any event that might bear an alarming interpretation. That fo little oppofition and fo little pretext for oppofition has arifen, I impute to a variety of caufes; to flull and care in individuals; to our fuperior knowledge of the nature of ani- mation; to inftru6live experiments upon ani- mals ; and, above all, to that power over invifible and impalpable agents which we derive from mechanics and chemiftry. III.