On phthisis and the supposed influence of climate : being an analysis of statistics of consumpton in this part of Australia : with remarks on the cause of the increase of that disease in Melbourne / by William Thomson.

Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On phthisis and the supposed influence of climate : being an analysis of statistics of consumpton in this part of Australia : with remarks on the cause of the increase of that disease in Melbourne / by William Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    obtruded upon their attention, might well weigh these words :— Things that are mean or even filthy,—things which must be introduced with an apology,—such things, no less than the most splendid and costly, must be admitted into natural history. Nor is natural history polluted thereby; for the sun enters the sewer no *' less than the palace, yet takes no pollution. That model, therefore, I follow. For what- *' ever deserves to exist deserves also to be known, for knowledge is the image of exist- ence ; and things mean and splendid exist alike. From mean and sordid instances there sometimes emanate excellent light and information. Many things in this history to common apprehension, or indeed to any understanding accustomed to the present system, will seem to be curiously and unprofitably subtle. Let men be assured of this, that all subtlety of disputation and discourse, if not applied till after axioms are discovered, is out of season and preposterous; and that the true and proper, or at any rate the chief time for subtlety