Observations on the origin and treatment of cholera and other pestilential diseases, and on the gaseous oxide of nitrogen as a remedy in such diseases; as also in cases of asphyxia from suffocation and drowning, and against the effects of narcotic poisons / [John Hancock].

  • Hancock, John, 1808-1890
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the origin and treatment of cholera and other pestilential diseases, and on the gaseous oxide of nitrogen as a remedy in such diseases; as also in cases of asphyxia from suffocation and drowning, and against the effects of narcotic poisons / [John Hancock]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    TO THE READER. The following' pages have been composed during a rather painful illness, under which the author has recently suf¬ fered,— such as to preclude all avails of learned lore from the hook-making rooms in Great Russell-street, and like¬ wise to render him less capable of attending to arrangement, or to forms or elegancies of language — ornaments, indeed, to which he never aspired: he hopes, however, that the matter only, and not the manner of the performance, will be regarded by the medical profession and the public. He begs leave to state, that what respects the medical treatment, (p. 9—13,) is the result of experience, of near thirty years, chiefly within the tropics: and that which regards the use of a new remedy — the nitrous oxide — although founded on experiment, in some measure demonstrative, yet remains to be applied to those important purposes indicated by its known physiological properties, viz. as an antidote to the effects ot impure air, or epidemical poisons. May we not entertain a hope, that, ere long, those mystical and destructive agents shall be better understood, and that more efficient means shall be devised for counteracting: their baneful and desolating progress ? To these momentous points, it has been the humble effort of the writer to draw the attention of the liberal and enlightened members of the medical faculty — of all real philanthropists and patrons of science. He is aware that narrow-minded critics are ever prone to condemn whatever they find discordant with their precon¬ ceived opinions, acquired at school: — he writes not for them, — courts not their favours, nor deprecates their cen¬ sures, but desires to submit this small essay to the con¬ sideration of men of candor and experience: the criticism of such judges he will regard with deference.