Bibliomania; or Book-Madness: A Bibliographical RomanceDibdin, Thomas Frognall
History
Bibliomania; or Book-Madness: A Bibliographical Romance
Dibdin, Thomas Frognall
Bibliography; Bibliomania; Book collecting; Books -- Prices
Having in the two preceding divisions of this letter discoursed
somewhat largely upon the HISTORY and SYMPTOMS of the Bibliomania, it
now remains, according to the original plan, to say a few words upon
the PROBABLE MEANS OF ITS CURE. And, indeed, I am driven to this view
of the subject from every laudable motive; for it would be highly
censurable to leave any reflecting mind impressed with melancholy
emotions concerning the misery and mortality that have been occasioned
by the abuse of those pursuits, to which the most soothing and
important considerations ought to be attached. Far from me, and my
friends, be such a cruel, if not criminal, conduct; let us then, my
dear Sir, seriously discourse upon the
III. PROBABLE MEANS OF THE CURE of the Bibliomania. _He_ will surely
be numbered among the philanthropists of his day who has, more
successfully than myself, traced and described the ravages of this
disease, and fortified the sufferer with the means of its cure. But,
as this is a disorder of quite a recent date, and as its
characteristics, in consequence, cannot be yet fully known or
described, great candour must be allowed to that physician who offers
a prescription for so obscure and complicated a case. It is in vain
that you search the works [ay, even the best editions] of Hippocrates
and Galen for a description of this malady; nor will you find it
hinted at in the more philosophical treatises of Sydenham and
Heberden. It had, till the medical skill of Dr. Ferriar first noticed
it to the public, escaped the observations of all our pathologists.
With a trembling hand, and fearful apprehension, therefore, I throw
out the following suggestions for the cure, or mitigatiou
[Transcriber's Note: mitigation], of this disorder:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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