Domestic medicine : a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases, by regimen and simple medicine. ... With remarks on the properties of food, vaccination, electricity, galvanism, bathing, &c / by William Buchan.

  • Buchan William, 1729-1805.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Domestic medicine : a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases, by regimen and simple medicine. ... With remarks on the properties of food, vaccination, electricity, galvanism, bathing, &c / 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.

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    OF TUB CBSERJL CJVSES OF DISEASES. OF CHZIi]>B.EN. The better to trace diseases from tlieir original causes, we sliall lake a view of the coiiiuioQ ireatHient of mankind in the state of infancy. In this period of our lives, the foundations of a good or bad constitution are geiieriilly laid ; it is therefore )f iuiportanee, that parents he well arquainted with the various causes which may injure the health of their offspring. It appears from the annual registers of the dead, that almost one half of the children born in Great Britain die under 12 years of age. To many, in- deed, this may appear a natural evil; hut, on due 1‘xamiuatioii, it will be fouiid to be one of our own creating. Were the death of infants a natural evil, other animals would he as liable to die young as man ; but this we lind is niy no means the case. It may seem strange that man, notwithstanding !his superior reason, should fall so far shortofother animals in the nianagenii nt of his young; hut our isurprise will soon cease, if we consider that brutes, Iguided by instinct, never err in this respect; while iinan, trusting solely to art, is seldom right. Were la catalogue of those infants, w ho perish annually :by art alone, exhibited to public view, it would lutonish most people. Nothing ran he more preposterous than a mother I who thinks it below her to take care of her own Ichild, or who is so ignorant as not to know what is I proper to he done for it. If we search Nature I throughout, we cannot find a parallel to this. Every I other animal is the nurse of its own offspring, and I they thrive accordingly. Were the brutes to bring Dp their young by proxy, they would share the I lame fate with the human species, I a