A glance at preventive medicine in 1769 and in 1874 / by Charles Frederick Moore.

  • Moore, Charles Frederick.
Date:
1874
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A glance at preventive medicine in 1769 and in 1874 / by Charles Frederick Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    AT PREVENTIVE MEDICINE IN 1769 AND IN 1874. At a recent Meeting of the Dublin Obstetrical Society, Dr. C. F. Moore read the following paper:— In attempting A Glance at Preventive Medicine in 1769 and in 1874, unforeseen difficulties have arisen. Permit me, therefore, Mr. President and Gentlemen, to ask your indulgence for its many shortcomings. I will here, by way of preface, dwell for a moment upon the existing state of society and science at or about the first period to be considered. Commenting upon the times preceding the foi'mer date, the author of A New History of England* wrote in 1766 as follows:— The powers of the human mind were freely and fully exercised in this period. Considerable progress was made in mathematics and astronomy by divers individuals—among whom we number Newton, Halley, WaUis, Barrow, Flamstead, Hudson, Sanderson, Bradley, Mac- laurin, Smith, and the two Simpsons. Natural philosophy became a general study, and the new doctrine of electricity grew into fashion. Different methods were discovered for rendering sea-water potable and sweet, and divers useful hints were communicated to the publick by the learned Doctor Stephen Hale, who directed all his researches and experiments to the benefit of society. The study of alchemy no longer prevailed; but the art of chemistry was perfectly understood, and assiduously applied to the purposes of sophisti- cation.'' This is not the place to enter into any detail of the long array of celebrated writers that marked the decades embraced in the first period referred to by the historian Mortimer—suffice to say, those were the • A New History of England, &c. Bj' Thomas Mortimer, Esq., &c. London, 1766. Vol. III., pp. 788-793, &c