Domestic medicine, or, A treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines : with an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners / by William Buchan.

  • Buchan, William, 1729-1805.
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Domestic medicine, or, A treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines : with an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners / by William Buchan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    fiances, the children were left to the foie care of merce- nary nurfes, without any perfon to inftruCt or fuperintend them, fcarcely any of them lived. This was fo apparent, as with me to amount to a proof of the following melancholy fa61: tfloat almoft one half of the human fpecies perifh in infancy, by improper manage- ment- or neglebl. This reflection has made me often willi to be the happy inflrument of alleviating the miferies of ihofe differing innocents, or of refcuing them from an un- rimely grave. No one, who has not had an oppor- tunity of obferving them, can imagine what abfurd and ridiculous pra&ices dill prevail in the nurfing and management of infants, and what numbers of lives are by that means loti to fociety. As thefe pra&ices are chiefly owing to ignorance, it is to be hoped, that when nurfes are better informed, their conduCl will be more proper. The application of medicine to the various occupa- tions of life has been in general the refultof obfervation. An extenfive practice for feveral years, in one of the larged manufacturing towns in England, afforded me fuf- ficient opportunities of obferving the injuries which thofe ufeful people fuflain from their particular employ- ments, and likewife of trying various methods of obvia- ting fuch injuries. The fuccefs which attended thefe trials was fufficient to encourage this attempt, which [ hope will be of ufe to thofe who are under the necefflt.y of earning their bread by fuch employments as are un- favourable to health. I do not mean to intimidate men, far lefs to infinuate that even thefe arts, the pra&ice of which is attended with fome degree of danger, fhould not be carried on; but to guard the lefs cautious and unwary againd thofe dangers which they have in their power to avoid, and which they often, through mere ignorance, incur. As every occupation in life difpofes thole who follow it to fome particular dif- eafes more than to others, it is certainly of importance to know thefe, in order that people may be upon their gwasd aeaihd them. It is always better to be warned of the approach of an enemy, than to be furprifed by him.