Medical reports, on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in fever, and other diseases, whether applied to the surface of the body, or used internally ... with observations on the nature of fever; and on the effects of opium, alcohol, and inanition / [James Currie].

  • James Currie
Date:
1798
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reports, on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in fever, and other diseases, whether applied to the surface of the body, or used internally ... with observations on the nature of fever; and on the effects of opium, alcohol, and inanition / [James Currie]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pectation of including it in a larger field of dis- cussion, and of presenting it in a form more cons ducive to reputation ; and the fruit of this deter. mination is the work now presented to you. In treating my subjects, perspicuity has been studied rather than rigorous method ; I have every where endeavoured to make my steps so plain, that they may be distinctly traced; the most important points are impressed again and again to guard against mistake ; my thermometrical observations have enabled me to give a precision to the direc- tions for the use of the affusion of cold water which otherwise they could not have had; and, if I do not flatter myself, have laid a foundation for my reasonings, which speculations on fever have seldom possessed. I have guarded against the unnecessary use of technical as well as of general expressions, It were better perhaps that medicine, like other branches of natural know- ledge, were brought from its hiding-place, and exhibited in the simplicity of science and the nakedness of truth. If it had been in my choice I would not have adopted the language of theory, like Boerhaave, or Sydenham ; but have exhibi- ted a medical work in the phraseology that Bacon had he lived. in our days, might have used. Un- fortunately in the present state of medical know- ledge, wholly to avoid the language of theory is umpossible. The corruptions of false doctrines : must
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