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 / by William Buchan, M.D. fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edingburgh.
- William Buchan
- Date:
- 1792
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 / by William Buchan, M.D. fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edingburgh. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.
146/794 (page 106)
![[ io6 ] CHAP. IX. OF INFECTION. JV/TANY difeafes are infectious. Every perfon ought therefore, as far as he can, to avoid all communication with the difeafed. The common practice of vifiting the fick, though often well meant, has many ill confequences. Far be it from us to difcourage any act of charity or benevolence, efpe- cially towards thofe in diftrefs; but we cannot help blaming fuch as endanger their own or their neigh- bours lives by a miftaken friendfliip or an imper- tinent curiofity. The houfes of the fick, efpecially in the country, are generally crowded from morning till night with idle vifitors. It is cuftomary, in fuch places, for fervants and young people to wait upon the fick by turns, and even to fit up with them all night. It would be a miracle indeed fhouldfuch always efcape. Experience teaches us the danger of this conduct. People often catch fevers in this way, and com- municate them to others, till at length they become epidemic. It would be thought highly improper, for one who had not had the fmall-pox, to wait upon a pa- tient in that difeafe; yet many other fevers are al- moft as infectious as the fmall-pox, and not lefs fatal. Some imagine that fevers prove more fatal in villages than in great towns, for want of proper medical affiftance. This may fometimes be the cafe; but we are inclined to think it oftener pro- ceeds from the caufe above mentioned. Were a plan to be laid down for communicating infection, it could not be done more effectually than by the common method of vifiting the fick. Such](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21441005_0146.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
