Observations on the history and cause of asthma : and a review of A practical enquiry on disordered respiration, in a letter to Robert Bree, M.D., the author of that work / by George Lipscomb.

  • Lipscomb, George, 1773-1846.
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the history and cause of asthma : and a review of A practical enquiry on disordered respiration, in a letter to Robert Bree, M.D., the author of that work / by George Lipscomb. 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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    It is impoffible to know the true value of the talifman, till the charm which guards it be diflblved. The real form of the faint cannot be underftood, till the Ihrine which enclofes him be examined: and lhall he who refpeftfully approaches, to view with the eye of reafon the long concealed treafure, be acculed of facrilege ? as if with unhallowed hands, he had prefumed to violate the facred inclo- fure, or with profane impiety, to fcatter the holy relics^ In the darker ages of phyfic, and before the knowledgef of anatomy was either generally, or in- W'c may freely inveftigale the credit due to their authority, without violating the spirit of the well known axiom, “ de mortuis, nil nifi bonum :”to which I moft readily yield my affcnt, “ for* though (after the approbation of the good and wife) one cannot wifli any thing better than to be heartily abufed by the envious and malignant “ in this life, becaufe it is as certain a fign of one's merit, as a dog’s balking at the moon is of her brightnefs ; yet the vail which death draws over us, is fo facred, that the throwing dirt there, has been efteemed at all times, and by all people, a profanation.” While we admit the truth of this remark, however, let me obferve, that a precept of far greater importance in point of morality, is too often and too commonly difregarded—de viventibus, nil nifi verum,” ♦ Warburton. f Among a thoufand other abfurdities, it has been aflerted, that the bile of Negroes is black inftead of yellow 5 and that the colour of their Ikin is occafioned by a depofit of this fluid in the cellular mem- brane. See Do6lor Barrere’s DilTertation on the ph'yfical caufe of ‘‘the colour of Negroes.” Could this learned phylician have ever feen the diffe6lion of an African ? Again, in one of the books which has been attributed to Hippo- crates himfelf j—mean the treatife “ de nattua humana i” it is faid that