A letter ... to ... the directors of Greenwich Hospital, containing an exposition of measures pursued by the Medical Officers of the London Eye Infirmary, and by the medical officers of the Army Medical Board, in order to prevent the execution of plans to eradicate ... the Egyptian ophthalmia / [Walter Adams].

  • Adams, Walter, Sir.
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter ... to ... the directors of Greenwich Hospital, containing an exposition of measures pursued by the Medical Officers of the London Eye Infirmary, and by the medical officers of the Army Medical Board, in order to prevent the execution of plans to eradicate ... the Egyptian ophthalmia / [Walter Adams]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    vision of the sufferers, as the plague or yellow fever have been to the lives of the persons attacked with those dreadful pestilences. The arguments which were successfully employed against the general inoculation for the cow-pox, in no respect applys to this measure ; for although forcing a parent to inoculate his child with a disease, the safety and efficacy of which he doubts, would be to exercise a degree of tyranny over the opinions and feelings of the subject, which the spirit of the English constitution could neither authorize or countenance, yet surely to prevent any person from spreading the plague or any other fatally infectious disease among the general population, cannot possibly be deemed an encroachment on the liberty of the subject. I answer the second objection, by stating that one of the chief means to be employed in the extermination of the ophthalmia, would be to afford such necessary information to every professional man throughout the kingdom, as will enable him to treat the disease in a manner to destroy its infectious principle. 1 his 1 pledge myself may be done with the greatest certainty of success ; and from the excrautiting suffer- ings which attend the acute form of the Egyptian ophthalmia there ean be no question, but thos afflict- ted with it, would, without the necessity of resorting to compulsory measures gladly and immediately, apply for relief, wherever and in whatever, manner they were certain of obtaining. Vei7 little expence would attend the execution of the plan which I had the honour to submit to Lord Sidmouth, and which met with his entire approbation. This plan is so simple in its nature, and so evidently piacticable, that I am persuaded it would be very ge-