A treatise on the varieties and consequences of ophthalmia : with a preliminary inquiry into its contagious nature.

  • Edmondston, Arthur, 1776?-1841.
Date:
1806
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the varieties and consequences of ophthalmia : with a preliminary inquiry into its contagious nature. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    fairly questioned which excludes the class of fevers from the list of contagious diseases* and considers consumption as a principal one. The circumstance perhaps of Aristotle not hav- ing been a practical physician, and his mentioning the opinion rather in a casual manner, may account for the limited number of converts to the doctrine, and the disregard into which it gradually fell. Ovid has been quoted by some, as an authority for the contagious nature of Ophthalmia. The words Dum spectant oculi lassos keduntur et ipsi *, have been considered as expressive of this opinion, A perusal, however, of the passage connected with this expression will shew that the loose analogy of the amatory poet had a very different object in view from that of establishing the medical opera- tion of contagion. Plutarch, in his Sy?nposiacon, expresses himself to the following effect:—As we observe in other * Reiiiedia amoris, ed Q. line 615.