Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/187



MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY

OF

BY ANDREW CARRICK M. D.

Senior Physician to the Bristol Infirmary;

AND

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, M. D.

Physician to the Bristol Hospital, and the Bistrol Dispensary.

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HE term Medical Topography has been prefixed to the following paper, in conformity with general custom; but had its strict meaning been adhered to, the subjects of discussion would have become more limited than we have thought right to make them. Something more than an account of those local peculiarities or other external agents, which affect the health of the inhabitants, or, than a description of certain conditions of the latter, as illustrative of the effects of the former, might reasonably be expected in a medical report of a populous city. To us the mere medical topography appears but a part, though an important one, of such an enquiry; the primary object being to ascertain the facts relative to the health or disease of the inhabitants; which may then be traced to their relations with various circumstances, some of which belong to topography, while others consist of the habits, customs, and occupations,