A treatise on the diseases of children : with directions for the management of infants from the birth / by Michael Underwood, M.D. ... ; with notes by a physician of Philadelphia ; three volumes in one ; vol. I[-III] ; from the sixth London edition.
- Michael Underwood
- Date:
- 1818
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the diseases of children : with directions for the management of infants from the birth / by Michael Underwood, M.D. ... ; with notes by a physician of Philadelphia ; three volumes in one ; vol. I[-III] ; from the sixth London edition. 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.)
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![in the two preceding editions, to render the work appro- priate to medical readers. For the style in general, indeed, the author pretends to have but little to offer; though it is hoped, that many of the greater imperfections which appeared in former edi- tions, are here done away. Prompted by a laudable ambition of being useful in his generation, and leaving behind him something beneficial to posterity in the only way he could attempt it, he is per- suaded the benefit will not terminate here; but that others will be excited to perfect this long neglected, but most im- portant branch of the profession. It has, indeed, been universally lamented, that in no age has the study of the disorders of children kept pace with the advancement of science: nor have the improvements in the practice of physic in the present century, produced as full and accu- rate accounts of them, as of the diseases of adults. In- deed, till of late years little more has been attem] n getting rid of the wild prejudices, and anile prescript is of the old writers, which had served only to obscure i-ie true nature of children's diseases. In this attempt, how- ever, and particularly in meliorating the practice, sotoe of the best of the more modern writers have run into a con- trary extreme, in not a few instances. A very principal cause of the above-mentioned neglect has arisen from an ancient idea, for a long time too gene- rally entertained, that, as medical people can have but a very imperfect knowledge of the complaints of infants, from the inability of children to give any account of them, it is safer to trust the management of them to old women and nurses; who, at least, are not likely to do mischief by violent remedies, though they may sometimes make use of improper and inadequate ones. Futile as such objections most certainly are, they have,' nevertheless, had considerable influence, and for a Ions:](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2116082x_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
