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.
- William Buchan
- Date:
- 1812
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. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![]Jf. men of superior abilities, when they have it in their powet : and they will do this with far greater confidence and readiness when they believe that medicine is a rational science, than when they take it to be only a matter of mere conjecture. Though I have endeavoured to render this treatise plain and useful, yet I found it impossible to avoid some terms of art; but such as are made use of are, in general, either explained, or are such as most people understand. In short, I have endeavoured to write down to the capacities of mankind in general; and if my Readers do not flatter either themselves or me, with some degree of success. This, however, on a medical subject, is not so easy a matter as some may imagine. It is easier to make a she*v of learning than to write plain sense, especially in a science which has been kept at such a distance from common observation. It would however, be no difficult matter to prove that every thing valuable in the practical part of medicine is within the reach of common sense, and that the Art would lose nothing by being stripped of all that any person endued with ordinary abilities cannot comprehend. All I shall say with regard to this edition is, that I have en- deavoured to render it still less defective than the former. An author would, in my opinion, be highly to blame who should neglect to improve his Book, merely because the purchasers of a former impression might complain. It is a debt which every Writer owes to the Public, to render his works as complete as possible; nor can it ever be considered as injurious to the purchasers of a former impression, as it takes nothing away from them. It would be ungenerous not to express ray warmest acknow- ledgments to those Gentlemen who have endeavoured to ex- tend the usefulness of this performance, by translating it into the language of their respective countries. I am peculiaily happy to find that this task has been undertaken both in France and Holland by men of distinguished abilities, who have not only given an elegant translation of the Book, but b](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28738305_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
