Opinions and new discoveries in agriculture, medicine, &c. &c. &c. / by Charles Whitlaw.

  • Whitlaw, Charles.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Opinions and new discoveries in agriculture, medicine, &c. &c. &c. / by Charles Whitlaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The author asked the inspector why he did not give it to the hogs, “because it would poison them,” was the reply. And when asked what disease he supposed would arise from the bad qualities of the milk, he said, “ bilious and putrid fevers, and overflowing of the gall, like the cattle that died with what is called ‘ the gall sickness,’ scrofula, in its most malignant form, consumption, flour albus, and all manner of nervous complaints.” When mercury was given to people who used such food, it caused insanity, and diseased the bones to such an extent that nearly half the people in Holland were made cripples for life. The courts of justice were prosecuting the doctors and apothe- caries for giving mercury ; when, therefore, we see the awful extent of misery produced on the inhabitants of Holland, before such salutary laws were enacted, I trust the electors of Britain will send such members to Parliament, as will use their utmost endeavours to procure for them sound provisions, which will ensure them health of body and peace of mind. On reviewing the following pages, the author was requested by a scientific friend to give a full description of the formation of the hard pan, and the evils produced by letting the land lie in that condition under the cultivated soil in the three kingdoms. In all new countries no such thing as a hard pan exists. The land is covered with forests, and the roots sink deep into the earth, and the rain is gradually drawn up to supply the trees with moisture, or runs oflf by land springs and rivers, but when the hard pan is first formed, the pasture land is covered by the dung from the farm yard. It is disgusting to the animals to eat their own dung, and the dung and urine of the numerous animals, and of the insects they trample to death, the oil of which sinks down from four to six inches in depth, and forms a hard substance, with sand, gravel, or clay, perfectly impervious to the action of rain, like patent plaster, and will hold water like a dish, and when the water is evaporated, loaded with the eggs of all manner of poisonous insects, particularly spiders as they spin their webs in the air and devour each other and the insects