The general state of medical and chirurgical practice exhibited; shewing them to be inadequate, ineffectual, absurd, and ridiculous ... And more rational ... methods of cure, by means of diet, simple medicines, etc., recommended. To which are added a great number of cases and cures / [James Graham].

James Graham

Date:: 1779

Credit: The general state of medical and chirurgical practice exhibited; shewing them to be inadequate, ineffectual, absurd, and ridiculous ... And more rational ... methods of cure, by means of diet, simple medicines, etc., recommended. To which are added a great number of cases and cures / [James Graham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$sad to {Well the oftentatious train of imaginary medical rc» fources, which are in reality of very {mall and precarious ule in a<5tual practice; becaufe they are rather fuppofed to pofiefs great virtues, than known to be endowed with any ufeful virtue at all.-But as truly valuable and efficacious remedies, applicable to a great variety of diforders, and capable of affording certain relief in a vaft number of de¬ plorable and hitherto incurable cafes, they have been in a great meafure unknown and unregardeb, except by myfelf alone. And in this refpeCt, as well as in my various and curious combinations and applications of them, of my chemical eflences, andof mymedicinal fimples, whichl render aCtive and effectual by thefe powerful means and irrefiftible agents, I not only lay an indifputable claim of discovering, improving, and of poffeiTing {kill fo far fuperior as to be able to cure difeafes, internal and external, where the mod celebrated Phyficians and Surgeons on earth have failed.— Of this, the belt proof is the great number I daily have the pleafure of curing; nor is it at all wonderful, al¬ though moft of the Patients had been given up by other practitioners; for can it be1 thought Arrange that fuch a ■variety of difeafes yeild to my new and peculiar methods, confifting of the moft valuable medicines produced by na¬ ture or by art, rendered more aCtive by means of air, aether, magnetifm, mufic, and electricity, the moft powerful prin¬ ciples in the univerfe, if we confider the long catalogue of very different complaints in which mercury, opium, bark# and antimony are now univerfally and fuccefsfully made ufe of ? But much of the efficacy of thefe medicines, as of every¬ thing elfe, depends on a fkilful and perfevering exhibi¬ tion of them; fo true is that maxim of Hippocrates.-- T« [MV yap utp£7\r]ijavrra rw opSug Trpo&EvsxQyvou utpEM- cav. ta ds fixcc-Lcwra tw [xm'zTi qoQojs TTpoaevEx^vcu I C/'.a-^av. To thofe Gentlemen who enquire from what fources T have drawn my Medical Knowledge—Improvements—and fuperior Skill, my anfwer {hall be as brief as poffible. To effedt thefe, I venture to fay, moft invaluable difeo- veries and improvements, I have fpared neither coft nor pains. After a regular claffical and medical education at the celebrated Univerfity of Edinburgh, 1 diligently confulted the literary monuments of the moft illuftrious and moft ex- cent rick dead, by ranfacking and culling from every book, ancient and modern I could meet with, and even from manuferipts written before printing was invented;—I courted, too, information and inftruCtion from the mob: eminent$