American modern practice, or, a simple method of prevention and cure of diseases, according to the latest improvements and discoveries, comprising a practical system adapted to the use of medical practitioners of the United States ; to which is added an appendix, containing an account of many domestic remedies recently introduced into practice, and some approved formulae applicable to the diseases of our climate / by James Thacher.
- James Thacher
- Date:
- 1817..
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: American modern practice, or, a simple method of prevention and cure of diseases, according to the latest improvements and discoveries, comprising a practical system adapted to the use of medical practitioners of the United States ; to which is added an appendix, containing an account of many domestic remedies recently introduced into practice, and some approved formulae applicable to the diseases of our climate / by James Thacher. 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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![iheir observation, and to recommend such remedies as had been known (o produce beneficial effects in similar complaints. And when discoveries were thus made, the precious reme- dies were held in veneration, and the knowledge of them was conveyed by oral tradition, or recorded upon pillars in the most public places, or on the walls of the temples dedicate*] to the God of health : and afterwards registers of cures were kept in those consecrated places for the general good of mankind. Thus was the practice of physic commenced under no other advantages, than the simple principle of analogy; and many ages elapsed before this abstruse and important science was placed upon a more solid foundation. The Egyptian medicine appears to have been little else than a collection of absurd superstitions. Among the Greeks, iEsculapius was the most celebrated of those to whom they attributed Ihe in- vention of physic. He was accounted the most eminent practitioner of his time, and his name continued to be rever- ed after his death. He was even ranked among the Gods, and the principal knowledge of the medical art remained with his family till the days of Hippocrates, who reckoned himself the seventeenth in a lineal descent from iEsculapius. We are not furnished with a correct series of information relative to medical history until about four hundred and fifty years prior to the Christian era, when, amidst a cloud of darkness and ignorance, the superior wisdom and brilliant talents of the great Hippocrates were displayed to the world. Under the auspices of this Prince of Physicians, the healing art first assumed the form of science, and was known and practised as a regular profession. In the treatment of diseases, he studied and copied nature, with the greatest care and assiduity, as the only sure basis of medical science, and so extensive was his knowledge, and so accurate his ob-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21158447_0014.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
