Lectures to women on anatomy and physiology : with an appendix on water cure / by Mary S. Gove.

  • Mary Nichols
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures to women on anatomy and physiology : with an appendix on water cure / by Mary S. Gove. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of drastic medicines causes inflammation of the mu- cous membrane that lines the stomach and intes- tines, piles, and many other evils. Think of this, ye mothers, who dose yourselves and children with salts, or with calomel, or with you know not what, in the Brandreth's pills, and the thousand and one quack medicines with which the ignorant are abused. That person who shall enlighten people with regard to the indiscreet use of purgatives alone will deserve the thanks of the community. I have seen parents who would boast of curing their children of various disorders by the use of powerful medicines, unaided by a physician. The children had lived, notwithstanding they had been most injudiciously treated. The parents little knew the evils they were creating and perpetuating by these cures. Should diseased action be es- tablished in a part of the system not at first attack- ed, they know nothing of the vital economy ; they consider it the consequence of the disorder, not of the drugs they have ignorantly administered. Should a child, after passing through a period of illness and a course of domestic practice, appear as though some deadly mildew or blight had struck it, the disorder is uniformly considered the cause. My child, says the mother, had the measles, or scarlet fever, as the case may be, and the dis- order did not leave him well, and he has been un- well ever since. With all the abuses that sur- round us, is it wonderful that the mortality among children is so great ] Is it wonderful that there is so much disease and imbecility of body and mind in after years ? Is it wonderful that there is a pre- cocious and unnatural development of animal in- stincts and passions, and that ruin, in many in- stances, is the consequence ? I have glanced at a few only of the evils that are