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.

    17/258 (page 17)
    ( 17* ) ating of human maladies, is a moft encouraging confideration. But though their advantages fhould require to be exprefled in much lower terms, it is obvious that they may ftill be an acquifition to humanity; and I have offered a numerical ftatement merely to evince their value, if theyrfhould prove ferviceable in any fpecies of difeafe, though they fail in all others. The habit of analyfing medical fa£ts is fo un- common that the diffident and the uninformed might by a little management be led to infer general want of power from partial inefficacy. It was accordingly remarked to me bya.phy- fician, acquainted with the hiftory of his art, the feelings of his brethren, and the fpirit of the metropolis, that fome patients might poflibly 14 be cured by breathing this or that air; as il others are by fwallowing this or that drug. «4 But the method, unlefs myfterioufly pra&ifed, *c cannot foon obtain credit; perfons out of 44 the profeffion are too indolent or ignorant to 64 concern themfelves about its pretenfions: it 44 appears troublefome and would put the fa- C4 culty too much out of their way; I think, 44 therefore fuccefs in twenty inftances will not5 at prefent, be fo likely to recommend it, as one failure to bring it into difcredit.—jj[ acknowledge the fhrewdnefs of thefe remarks; and I am fenfible that it is a thing of itfelf by no means defirable to put the faculty out of their ■way.