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. To which are added, observations on the diet of the common people; recommending a method of living less expensive, and more conducive to health, than the present / by William Buchan.

  • Buchan William, 1729-1805.
Date:
1800
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. To which are added, observations on the diet of the common people; recommending a method of living less expensive, and more conducive to health, than the present / by William Buchan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    46/830 (page 4)
    It Is indeed to be regretted, that more care is not beftowed in teaching the proper management of chil- dren to thofe whom Nature has defigned for mothers. This, Inflead of being made the principal, is feldoin confidered as any part of female education. Is it any wonder, when females fo educated come to be mothers, that they fhould be quite ignorant of the duties be- longing to that charadler ? However ftrange it may appear, it is certainly true, that many mothers, and thofe of fafliion too, are as ignorant, when they have brought a child into the world, of what is to be done for It, as the infant itfelf. Indeed, the moll ignorant of the fex are generally reckoned mofl: knowing in the bufmefs of nurfing. Hence, fenfible people become the dupes of ignorance and fuperftition ; and the nurfing of children, inftead of being conduced by' reafon, is the refult of whim and caprice*. Were the time that is generally fpent by females in the acquifition of trifling accomplifliments, employed in learning how to bring up their children'; how to drefs them fo as not to hurt, cramp, or confine their motions; how to feed them with wholefome and nourifhing food ; how to exercife their tender bodies; fo as beft to promote their growth and flrength: were thefe made the objects of female inflruQion, mankind would derive the greatefl advantages from it. But while the education of females implies little more than what relates to drefs and public fliew, we have nothing to expert from them but ignorance even in the mofl important concerns. * Tacitus, the celebrated Roiran hiftorian, complains greatly of the degeneracy of the Roman ladies In his time, with regard to the care of their offspring. He fays that, in former times, the greatefl women in Rome ufed to account It their chief glory to keep the houfe and attend their children ; but that now the young infant was committed to the foie care of fonee poor Grecian wench, or other menial fervant.—We are afraid, wherever luxury and effeminacy prevail, there will be too much ground for this com- pki.U. 2