Volume 1

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.

  • Buchan William, 1729-1805.
Date:
1791
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 / 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.

    119/798 (page 77)
    and the effluvia from putrid carcafles mufl: render it ftill worfe. Churches are commonly old buildings with arched roofs. They are feldom open above once a week, are never ventilated by fires nor open windows, and rarely kept clean. This occafions that damp, mufty, unwholefome fmell whi^h one feels upon entering a church, and renders it a very unfafe place for the weak and valetudinary. Thefe inconveniences might, in a great meafure, be ob- viated, by prohibiting all perfons from burying within churches, by keeping them clean, and permit- ting a ftream of frefii air to pafs frequently through them, by opening oppofite doors and windows^. Wherever air ftagnates long, it becomes un- wholefome. Hence the unhappy perfons confined in jails not only contradl: malignant fevers them- felves, but often communicate them to others. Nor are many of the holes, for we cannot call them [ houfes, pofiefied by the poor in great towns, much better than jails. Thefe low dirty habitations are the very lurking-places of bad air and contagious difeafes. Such as live in them feldom enjoy good health ; and their children commonly die young. In the choice of a houfe, thofe who have it in their power ought always to pay the greatefi; attention to open free air. ! The various methods which luxury has invented to make houfes clofe and warm, contribute not a little to render them unwholefome. No houfe can be wholefome unlefs the air has a free pafiage through it. For which reafon houfes ought daily to be ventilated, by opening oppofite windows, and admitting a current of frefii air into every room. Beds, initead of being made up as foon as people * rife out of them, ought to be turned down, and expofed to the frefh air from the open windows ’ ^ * One cannot pafi through a large church or cathedral, even in rummer, withoutfee]ij*gquit« chilly. through