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:
- 1805
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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![once, there may be fome danger ; but this proceeds entirely from the child’s not having been accuftomed to uHs its legs from the beginning. Mothers of the poorer fort think they are great gainers by making their children lie or fit while they thenifelves work. In this they are greatly miftaken. By negled- ing to give their children exercife, they are obliged to keep them a long time before they can do any thing for themfelves, and to fpend more on medicine than would have paid for proper care. 'I'o take care of their children, is the mofl: ufeful bufmefs in which even the poor can be employed ; but, alas ! it is not always in their power. Poverty often obliges them to ncgleft their oilspring in order to pro- cure the necdl'aries of life. When this is the cafe, it becomes the intereft as well as the duty of the public to affiil them. Ten thoufand times more benefit would accrue to the State, by enabling the poor to bring up their own children, than from all the hofpitals * that ever can be erefted for that purpofe. W^hoever confiders the ftrudure of the human body will foon be convinced of the neceffity of exercife for the health of children. The body is compofed of an infinite number of tubes, whofe fluids cannot be pufiied on without the adion and preflure of the mufcles. But, if the fluids remain inadlive, obftrudtions mull happen, and the humours will of courfe be vitiated, which can- not fail to occafion difeafes. Nature has furnKhed both the vefiels which carry the blood and lymph with nu- merous valves, in order that the adlion of every mufcle might pufh forward dieir contents j but w’ithout ac- • If it were made the intereft of the pocr to keep their chil- dien alive, v.e Ihould lofe very few of them. A fmall premium pdven annually to each poor family, for every child they h.ave alive at the year’s end, would lave more infant lives than if the whole revenue of the crown were expended on holpifals for this purpofe. Tills would make the poor efteem fertility a bleOing ; whereas many of them think it the greateft curfe that cr.n beta] them ; and in place of withing their children to live, fo far docs poverty get the better of natural affedlion, that they are ol ien very happy when they die. tion,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22033191_0072.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
