Contributions to physical and medical knowledge, principally from the West of England / collected by Thomas Beddoes.

Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to physical and medical knowledge, principally from the West of England / collected by Thomas Beddoes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    The latter Is the proper introdu6Hon to the former j it enjoys univerfal currency and may be intlrumental in procuring for the other the fame advantage. Accordingly ill announcing the prefent colleftion, I faid : “ It is not propofed to confine the work flrlfl:ly to medical papers. “ With the philofophy of inanimate nature which bears in fo many points upon his art, no pradtitioner of medicine fliould be unacquainted. Nor does any thing feem more “ demonftrable than that every liberally educated indivi- dual fliould be initiated into the philofophy of animated nature. An extenlive feries of experiments in the firfl: volume will furnifh a ftriking example of the connexion “ between thefe branches of knowledge. And the propriety “ of keeping them together ought perhaps on all occations “ to be held up to contemplation.” My opinion concerning the utility of this aflbeiation may be accounted fanciful. Nor will I defend it with much warmth.—The grand expedient for rendering phyfiology popular and medicine certain, is to enlarge our flock of obfervations on animal nature. Before the invention of printing, there could be but one pradlicable way of accom- plifliing this purpofe. Individuals were obliged to com- mit lingly to writing what each had feen and thought. When there was not matter enough for a proper volume i^justum volume??), the ideas periflied with him who had conceived them. Information therefore accumulated flowly. In later times a happy expedient prefented itfclf. Periodical publications for preferving and embodying fliort and other- wife fugitive pieces were fet on foot. To thefe repoGtories
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