A treatise on the diseases of children : with directions for the management of infants / by the late Michael Underwood.

  • Michael Underwood
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the diseases of children : with directions for the management of infants / by the late Michael Underwood. 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.)

    24/392
    has rendered the language more exact and clear. The text of his edition has been preserved on the present occasion in almost uninterrupted series, until the section on the < Topical Diseases of Children' was reached. Of these the accounts of the ones more strictly peculiar to infancy have been retained : but no advantage could follow the insertion of notices of others which were quite too meagre for practical guidance ; and which, at the same time, be- longed to surgery, in the treatises on which, ex-professo, or in sepa- rate monographs, they are alone adequately described and treated. Of these latter may be instanced Cataract, Gutta Serena, Morbus Coxarius, Hernia, Hydrocele, Vari and Valgi. To have done jus- tice to them, with the requisite fulness, would have swelled the volume to an inconvenient bulk, and after all have added really nothing new to the treatment of the diseases of children. An explanation of some difference between the two last and preceding English editions, will be best given in the language of Dr. Merriman himself, as follows: — The later editions of Dr. Underwood's Treatise consisted of three volumes, the third of which was appropriated to directions for the management of in- fants from birth and other subjects, which seemed naturally fitted to precede, rather than to follow, a Treatise on Infants' Diseases. These directions are, therefore, now made the introduction to the single volume ; in which the whole of Dr. Underwood's work, with the exception of his dissertation on the Properties of Human Milk, is comprised. This dissertation, written principally to con- trovert some opinions advanced by Dr. Joseph Clarke of Dublin, in 1786, it has not been judged necessary to reprint. Nor has the editor deemed it advisable to reprint some rather long controver- sial notes, which might perhaps have been spared when first in- serted, and for the publication of which now, no good reason can be assigned. The notes of Dr. Merriman are marked with the initials (S. M.) of his name. Those of Dr. Hall are in brackets [ ], and have the initials of his name (M. H.); they are mostly printed in the same type, with, and in the body of, the text. The additions by the American editor are indicated by a letter (a) prefixed until the alphabet was exhausted, and then double letters (aa) were em- ployed ; and they may be, also, farther known by their being in a different type from either that of the text, or of the notes of Dr. Merriman. A claim to additional value, as a work of reference, for the present volume, will be found in an Index, which was wanting in the English.