Volume 1

The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others].

Date:
1908-1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is or may be a ])oisoii that is to say, it consists of a chug which, wiongly used, may ])r()ve injurious or even lethal, but rightly used can heal. So is it with such a work as this. Certain unbalanced minds may so misuse it as to miss its real teaching, and thus, instead of being a haibinger of health, it may be made to minister to diseased fancies. Some ])ec)i)le think that a knowledge of hygiene and elementary remedies leads to morbid introspection, but such is not found to be the case. On the contrary, those who are least liable to this are the doctors themselves, who, though incessantly occupied in reading and practising medicine and in dealing with disease, are singularly free from hy])ochondria themselves. In the same way the bulk of readers require no caution at all; and to the minority we say, use the counsels and knowledge here given, but do not abuse them. Let them give you that calmness and courage in the hour of need that true knowledge confers, but do not let them be the absorbing centre of your leisure thoughts. Remember, the ])ursuit of health as an object defeats itself. Let the object in life be outside yourself or your own welfare, and of a higher and nobler character, and let this work be used to ju'eserve health, as the means to a worthy end, and not as an end in itself. W’e feel (piite sure that none can study this work aright without having placed in their hands a knowledge that can enable them to check some needless sickness or to avert some premature death. ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD, JAMES CRICHTOX-BROWNE, WILLIAM H. BROADBEXT.