Observations on the preservation of health in infancy, youth, manhood and age. With a brief account of the principal British and continental spas and watering places / [John Harrison Curtis].

  • Curtis, John Harrison, 1778-approximately 1860
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the preservation of health in infancy, youth, manhood and age. With a brief account of the principal British and continental spas and watering places / [John Harrison Curtis]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    method of getting rid of our ignorance, is to carry the division of medical labour much farther than has hitherto been effected. There is abundant encouragement for so doing. In those departments of the profession which have been practised as distinct occupations, the greatest and most rapid improvements have taken place within the last thirty years. Witness dental surgery, between which as it existed not very long ago and its present state, the labours of such men as Bell, Cartwright, and Dumergue, have made so great a difference, that operations which formerly were attended with pain and danger, are now performed with scarcely any suffering, and with perfect safety. The oculist and aurist have brought about results of a similar kind, by their undivided attention to diseases of the eye and ear; organs whose delicacy deterred the practitioners of former times from operating upon them, but which are now treated with as much safety and success as the strongest. Some practitioners are averse to any division of me- dical labour, which they conceive is injurious to the pro- fession : but, as Sir W. Farquhar observed on this point, we must consider the interests of the public in preference to those of any particular class of men. Much good has also resulted from the institution of hospitals for the exclusive treatment of various diseases; such as the Fever, Ophthalmic, Small-Pox, Lock, and other Hospitals. The great and acknowledged excellence of Her Majesty’s Royal Naval Hospitals is, no doubt, in and snappish; many such persons have received their death- wounds while caressing their dogs. The case of the beautiful Lady , who suffered her lip to be licked by her lap-dog, and died raving mad (the poison having been absorbed into the cir- culation), shews that such amusements are often attended with danger.