New guide to health, or Botanic family physician : containing a complete system of practice, upon a plan entirely new : with a description of the vegetables made use of, and directions for preparing and administering them to cure disease ; to which is added a description of several cases of disease attended by the author, with the mode of treatment and cure / by Samuel Thomson.

Samuel Thomson

Date:: 1835

Credit: New guide to health, or Botanic family physician : containing a complete system of practice, upon a plan entirely new : with a description of the vegetables made use of, and directions for preparing and administering them to cure disease ; to which is added a description of several cases of disease attended by the author, with the mode of treatment and cure / by Samuel Thomson. 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.)

Title Page

21/232

timony, nitre, &c, are so many deadly engines, combined with the disease, against the constitu- tion and life of the patient.- If cold, which is the commonly received opinion, (and which is true,) is the cause of fever, to repeatedly bleed the pa- tient and administer mercury, opiu,nv, nitre, and other refrigerants, to restore him to health, is, ae though a man should, to increase a fire in his room, throw a part of it out of the house, and to increase the remainder, put on water, snow and ice! As it is a fact that cannot be denied, that fever takes its rise from one great cause or origin, it follows of course, that one method of removing that cause, will answer in all cases; and the great principle is to assist nature, which is heat. At the commencement of a fever, by direct and proper application of suitable medicine, it can be easily and speedily removed. Twenty-four or for- ty-eight hours, to the extent, are sufficient, and often short of that time, the fever may be remo- ved, or that which is the cause of it. But where the patient is left unassisted, to struggle with the disease, until his strength is exhausted, and more especially, when the most unnatural and injurious administrations are made, if a recovery is possi- ble, it must of necessity take a longer time.— These declarations are true, and have been often proved, and can be again, to the satisfaction of eve- ry candid person, at the hazard of any forfeiture the faculty may challenge. Notwithstanding all these things, how true are the words of the intelligent Dr. Hervey, who says, By what unaccountable perversity in our frame does it appear, that we set ourselves so much against any thing that is new] Can any one be- hold without scorn, such drones of physicians, and after the space of so many hundred years expe-

Licence and re-use

Contents