Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.Giles, George Michael James
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Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.
Giles, George Michael James
Hygiene -- Popular works; Medical climatology; Tropical medicine
It must be clearly understood that what little is said on this subject
is in no way intended to supersede the necessity of medical advice,
whenever that may be available; but in these out-lands, the number of
doctors to the square yard is far smaller than it is in Europe, and even
in comparatively settled regions, it is quite easy to place twenty miles
or more between yourself and the nearest medical man.
It must be remembered that in tendering general advice of this sort the
prescriber is considerably hampered by the necessity of recommending
nothing that is likely to do harm should the amateur doctor’s diagnosis
be faulty, and that he is thus debarred from suggesting many measures
that would be perfectly appropriate were the case under competent
supervision.
I do not of course refer merely to the question of poisons, as there are
few drugs that are of any real use that are not capable of causing
dangerous symptoms if administered in adequate doses--and many of the
drugs recommended are as a matter of fact powerful poisons--but rather
to the fact that even assuming reasonable care and intelligence in
weighing and measuring, one must needs direct only such measures as will
not be harmful in the by no means unlikely event of a mistaken
diagnosis. In only too many of the scourges that devastate these
latitudes, there is no time to wait for the arrival of a doctor living a
day’s journey away, as the chances are that the fate of the patient will
be no longer in the balance when at last he arrives; so that for
anything to be of any use it must be done quickly.
This method of treating the subject necessarily involves occasional
repetition, but in view of the importance of the details thus
emphasised, this may not be entirely disadvantageous.
CHOLERA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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