Bulwer and Forbes on the water-treatment : a compilation of papers on the subject of hygiene and rational hydropathy; edited with additional matters.

  • Houghton, Roland S.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bulwer and Forbes on the water-treatment : a compilation of papers on the subject of hygiene and rational hydropathy; edited with additional matters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    treatment. To 1841 he had treated 7219 strangers, and there had been 39 deaths. Some of these I found by the registry had died before commencing the treat- ment, and some others were reported in a forlorn state before any thing was attempted.* So much for the charge of nostrum-vending—a charge which falls to the ground of its own weight and stupidity. [I might cavil a little, in this place, at the expense of some of the regular practitioners, for their use of such nostrums as James's Powder; but this would be displaying a little of a spirit I despise ; so this is a point for retali- ation I very cheerfully let drop.] II. The hydropathist is also accused by implication of sounding his own praise in the public papers. This charge is hardly more tenable than the other. It is the open, avowed, and unblushing quack—the man of pills, elixirs, and panaceas—who is most given to this sort of thing; and I have yet to learn that such a mode of self-trumpeting is a peculiar characteristic of any respectable hydropathic physician. Legitimate ad- vertising and the publication of works on the water treatment are very different affairs, of course, and do not properly come under this particular charge. I know of no good reason why the honest physician should not publish his card of announcement as freely as he pleases, under the judicious restraint of public opinion and a proper degree of self-respect; and with regard to the publication of medical works, I do not know that there is any especial reason by which this * Dr. James Wilson