The new domestic medicine : or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases, by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners. ... ; To which is now first added, memoirs of the life of Dr. Buchan : and important extracts from other works, particularly his Advice to mothers, ... / by William Buchan.

Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The new domestic medicine : or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases, by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners. ... ; To which is now first added, memoirs of the life of Dr. Buchan : and important extracts from other works, particularly his Advice to mothers, ... / by William Buchan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    (TRANSLATION.) St. Retersburgh, 30th January. 1788. The Empress, my august Sovereign, has charged me, sir, to assure you, in her name, how much she has been delighted with your interesting work, addressed to her. Her Imperial Majesty will always feel a pleasure in taking every opportunity of shewing the interest she has in literature, and particularly in those who cui tivate it with so much utility and reputation as you, sir. I am or- dered by her to transmit you the medal that accompanies this, as a still fur'her mark of her esteem. At the same time, I embrace this opportunity to assure you of the sentiments of high consideration w ith which I have the honour to be, Sir, Your mogt humble and most obedient serv ant, (Signed) C. J. D’OSTERMAN. (Addressed) Mr. Buchan, Edinburgh. But the Domestic Medicine was not the only one of Dr. Buchan's publications. He had not been long in London, till he marked the dreadful consequences, which attend the practice of empiricism in the metropolis, for the cure of the venereal disease. The young and unwary, anxious to conceal their situation, and quickly to get rid of w hat is often but a trifling evil, misled by the impositions of public advertisements, consign themselves to the hands of ignorance and unprincipled deception. Here their miseries are augmented, their health destroyed, and their purse and constitution both drained, before they find out their woeful mistake. With a view to warn the victims of such mal-practice of the dangers they run, and to point out the most rational method of cure, he wrote his “ Treatise on the Venereal Disease.” The subject he has pursued in the same popular manner as in his Domestic Medicine, and the work has certainly been productive of much benefit to the young and imprudent part of society. This and the Domestic Medicine may be considered as his two chief wrorks; but, in the last years of his life, he gave some farther observations on the subject of the Treatment of Children; and also on mothers, under the title of “ Advice to Mothers on their own Health, and on the Means of promoting the Health, Strength, and Beauty of their Offspring.” Thus he may be said to have returned to the favourite topic of his youth. Yet this work, though containing many excellent remarks, is written in a manner more diffuse than any of the others, and does not possess the same value and practical importance. Having thus traced the leading traits of Dr. Buchan’s history as a physician, let us next consider his character as a man. No one possessed in a higher degree the principles of benevolence and good-will. Alive to the better feelings of the heart, he was an enemy to none but apothecaries, whom he viewed as a serious in- jury to the profession, by degrading it to the level of a trade. His ear was ever open to the tale of distress, and his hand never with- held its aid to suffering humanity, even beyond what his pecuniary circumstances could admit. As his heart was ever ready to ex- pand, he enjoyed the pleasures of society with much relish, and he brought into it that good humour and conviviality*, which made his