It may perhaps serve to lessen the prejudices of physicians against adopting improvements in medicine, that are not recommended by the authority of colleges or universities, to add, that we are indebted to an old woman, for the discovery of the efficacy of common salt in the cure of hæmoptysis.
THOUGHTS
UPON
THE CAUSE AND CURE
OF THE
PULMONARY CONSUMPTION.
The ancient Jews used to say, that a man does not fulfil his duties in life, who passes through it, without building a house, planting a tree, and leaving a child behind him. A physician, in like manner, should consider his obligations to his profession and society as undischarged, who has not attempted to lessen the number of incurable diseases. This is my apology for presuming to make the consumption the object of a medical inquiry.
Perhaps I may suggest an idea, or fact, that may awaken the ideas and facts which now lie useless in the memories or common-place books of other physicians; or I may direct their attention to some useful experiments upon this subject.
I shall begin my observations upon the consumption, by remarking,
1. That it is unknown among the Indians in North-America.