A treatise on the causes and effects of inflammation, fever, cancer, scrofula, and nervous affections : observations on the correctness of Linnaeus's classification of diseases, together with remarks on the specific action of his patent medicated vapour bath, and rules for diet and regimen / by Charles Whitlaw.

  • Whitlaw, Charles.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the causes and effects of inflammation, fever, cancer, scrofula, and nervous affections : observations on the correctness of Linnaeus's classification of diseases, together with remarks on the specific action of his patent medicated vapour bath, and rules for diet and regimen / by Charles Whitlaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    their specific character is still preserved: as a flower may undergo particular changes by cultivation, or transplantation from one climate to another, still its class and order will seldom be mistaken,-—its natural order never : so that in whatever portion of the globe a botanist meets with a flower, he is at no loss, however disguised, to assign it to its proper class and relation. My principal object in this work has been to point out the cause of fever, by which it may be avoided, and which may lead to a more successful plan of treatment. Had medical men been more anxious in investigating into the cause of disease, and less solicitous in hunting after secret remedies for the cure, medicine had never become an object of ridi- cule, nor the names of its professors branded as the scourges of the human race. The system of medi- cine and surgery (says a late eminent writer), which is established in any country, has a greater influence over the lives of its inhabitants than the epidemic diseases produced by its climate, or the decisions of its government concerning peace or war; the devastations of the yellow fever will bear no comparison with the ravages committed by the Brunonian system: and the slaughter at the field of Waterloo counts not of victims a tithe of the number of which the Cullenian doctrine of debility can justly boast. What reception this work may meet with at the hands of the selfish and narrow minded, generally the most numerous of every profession, I am igno- rant, but not solicitous; I hav^e received no favour at their hands to acknowledge, nor could I expect it from men proverbially illiberal, prejudiced, and self- interested ; and as to their resentment, I have borne it too long to value it; they have never failed to persecute me with a spirit which might have done credit to the emissaries of a Don Miguel. I cannot also help adverting to the ungentlemanly