Medical notes on China / by John Wilson.

  • Wilson, John, 1788-1870
Date:
MDCCCXLVI [1846]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical notes on China / by John Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    18/302 (page 12)
    PREFACE. settled in therapeutic applications. In this belief, and in accordance with his previous practice, the writer noted, from time to time, what appeared to him most worthy of record in China; first, in respect of disease, its nature, treatment, progress, and results; and second, regarding its causes, apparent and probable, whether permanent and necessary, or artificial and capable of being removed. The notations were made without any fixed view to publication, the contingency of their being laid beforie the profession, or kept back, was to be determined by what might appear on the same subject before their ter- mination. Had any other jjerson taken the same groimd respecting the principal circumstances affecting health, and promulgated similar, or nearly similar, opinions, re- specting them and their results, this volume might, and would have been, spared. But amongst the many works respecting China and the Chinese, which have lately issued from the j)ress, there has yet been nothing de- scriptive of the principal diseases of the region, and their effects on the force employed there. In this state of things, the writer thinks it his duty to give publicity to his observations. Some account of the medical affairs of such an expedition, and subsequent operations, seems desirable for various reasons. The force employed was at one time large; the ground occupied was so new, as to be all but unknown, and peculiar in many of its fea- tures ; and the diseases, though not new in essence, were also peculiar in many of their features. The Notes, with their respective dates, are printed in tlie sha])u in which they were taken. This mode of