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 / ... Revised and adapted to the diseases and climate of the United States of America, by Samuel Powel Griffitts.

  • Buchan, William, 1729-1805
Date:
1795
Catalogue details

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 / ... Revised and adapted to the diseases and climate of the United States of America, by Samuel Powel Griffitts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ~ . a ee Re er a es UT Tee PN a5 7] OF CHILDREN. r3 large, while another remains too {mall; and thus, in time, the whole frame becomes difproportioned and -misthapen. To this we muft add, that when a child is cramped in its clothes, it naturally fhrinks from the part that is hurt; and, by putting its body into unnatural poftures, it becomes deformed by habit. Deformity of body may indeed procecd from weaknefs or difeafe; but, in general, it is the effec of improper clothing. Nine tenths, at leaft, of the deformity among mankind, muft be imputed to this caufe. A deformed body is not only difagreeable to the eye, but, by a bad figure, both the animal and vital fun@ions muft be impeded, and, of courfe, health impaired. Hence, few people remarkably misfhapen are {trong or healthy. The new motions which commence at the birth, as the circulation of the whole mafs of blood through the lungs, refpiration, the periftaltic motion, Wc. afford another {trong argument for keeping the body of an infant free from all preflure. Thefe organs, not having been accuftomed to move are’ eafily ftopped ; but when this happens, death mutt enfue. ‘Hardly any method could be devifed more eftectually to ftop thefe motions, than bracing the body too tight with rollers* and bandages. Were thefe to be applied in the fame manner to the body of anvadult, for an equal length of time, they would hardly fail to hurt the digeftion and make him fick. How much more hurtful they muft prove to the tender bodies of infants, we fhall leave any one to judge. Whoever confiders thefe things, will not be fur- prifed, that fo many children die of convulfions foon *° This is by no means inveighing againft a thing that does not happen. In many parts of Britain, and in France, at this day, a roller, eight or ten feet in length, is applied tightly round the child’s body, as foon as it is born. a atten