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 the following new treatises: sea-bathing, etc / By J. Baker.

  • Buchan, William, 1729-1805
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: 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 the following new treatises: sea-bathing, etc / By J. Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    570/748 (page 542)
    cies. We thought proper to mention it, though it fhould only be attempted by perfons flcillcd in furgeiy. OF NOXIOUS VAPOLJPvS. Air may be many ways rendered noxious, or even deflrudlive to animals. This may either happen from its vivifying principle being deftroyed, or from fubtle exhalations with which it is impregnated. Thus, air that has paifed through burning fuel is neither capable of fiipporting fire nor the life of animals. Hence the danger of fleeping in clofe chambers, with charcoal fires. Some indeed fuppofe the danger proceeds from the fulphureous oil contained in the charcoal, which is fet at liberty and diffufed all over the chamber ; while others imagine it is owing to the air of the room being charged with phlogiflon. Be this as it may, it is a fituation carefully to be avoided. Indeed, it is dan- gerous to fleep in a fmall apartment with a fire of any kind. I lately faw four perfons who had been fulfoc^^ted by fleeping in an apartment where a fmall fire of coal had been left burning. The vapour which exhales from wine, cyder, beer, or other liquors in the fliate of fermentation, contains fomething^oifonons, which kills in the fame manner as the vapour of coal. Hence there is always danger in going into cellars where a large quajitity of thefe liquors is in a Rate of fermentation, efpecially if they have been clofe fhut up for fome time. There have been many inftancesof perfons being ftrnck dead on entering fuch places, and of others who have with diificulty efcaped. When fubterraneous eaves, that have been very long Ikut, are opened, or when deep wells are cleaned, which have not been emptied for feveral years, the vapours arifing from them produce the fame effedts of thofe mentioned above. For this reafon, no perfon ought to venture into a well, pit, or cellar, or any place that is damp and has been long done up, till the air has been