Practice of physic ... / with notes ... To which are added, the discoveries made in physic since the time of Dr. Cullen ... Including also the laws of the animal economy, and doctrines of pneumatic medicine. By R.J. Thornton.

  • Cullen, William, 1710-1790
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practice of physic ... / with notes ... To which are added, the discoveries made in physic since the time of Dr. Cullen ... Including also the laws of the animal economy, and doctrines of pneumatic medicine. By R.J. Thornton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    107/570 (page 75)
    Wherever climate produces immoderate heat, benevolent Na- ture has taken care to relieve its parched inhabitants with fruits or juices adapted to their situation. The people of Spain and Portugal, of Turkey, and Asia in general, live on grapes, peaches, nectarines, figs, melons, and rice. Those who live within the tro- pics have their woods, or groves, filled with orange, lemon, citron,, and other delicate fruits. As they approach nearer the line, they have also pine-apples, chaddocks, and cocoa-nuts. On such they live in health, and by such they recover when sick. What might we not learn from them in dieting our sick? Nature too points the way. A man in a fever pants after every thing that can quench his thirst; and when oranges, ripe fruits, or currant jellies, are craved by his feelings, and swallowed with delight, how must he be oppressed with Raleigh’s Cordial Confection. In former times the greatest attention was paid to every thing that seemed to relieve or offend the sick. The old physicians ob- served, with particular care, what nature craved, and found, that while foods, especially animal substances, were commonly disre- lished, and often abhorred, drinks were greedily desired; and that those of the sour and acescent kind only appeased the pa- tient’s longing. The ancients took the hint, and contrived such drinks. Accordingly oxymel was a principal febrifuge with Hip- pocrates; ripe fruits were recommended by Arseteus and Trallian^ and so long ago as the tenth century, Rhazes gave acids to prevent and cure the plague. The juices of citron and sorrel, says Senertus, resist putrefac- tion, peculiarly strengthen the heart, correct the feverish habit, and have aperient powers at the same time. Van Swieten boast® that the juice of ripe fruits requires no preparation, extinguishes thirst, tempers heat, opens the belly and urinary passages, and furnishes the most exquisite solace to a stomach oppressed with putrid bile. Of his master, Boerhaave, we are told, that in a stubborn putrid case he ordered, with success, ten pounds of cher- ries daily. One of the ablest physicians of this century has ob- served, that it is a vulgar error to suppose disease* are made mor£ F. 2