Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/69



PART II.

MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY.

SKETCH OF THE MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY

OF THE

COMPRISING THE

DISTRICT OF THE LANDSEND,

IN CORNWALL.

BY JOHN FORBES, M.D., F.R.S.

Physician to the Chichester Infirmary; Honorary member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, the Portsmouth Philosophical Society, &c.; and Physician in Ordinary to His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge.

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HE great object of Medical Topography being to trace the causes of diseases, with a view to their prevention, the aim of the Medical Topographer ought to be to detail all the circumstances, physical and moral, which can in any way exert an influence over the health of the inhabitants of the place which he undertakes to describe; and to investigate the nature of this influence, and the manner of its operation, until it terminates in the production of formal bodily disorder. A complete Treatise of Medical Topography would, therefore, comprehend a most varied and extensive range of information respecting the locality treated of. The principal heads under which the various subjects in such a