Thomas Beddoes to the Editor of The Monthly Magazine, 10 October 1808
SIR,
Allow me, through the Monthly Magazine, to reply to various enquiries; that I do not mean to publish a new edition of Hygeia, or Essays on Health. A totally new work will be substituted in the place of such an edition; in that I shall endeavour to point out what men ought to do, and what they ought to shun, in order to secure the sound mind in the sound body; as also what it is their interest to feel and think concerning our profession. My hope is to contribute to domestic welfare, and also towards the extirpation of that part of the routine which degrades and oppresses the most important of human arts. I have neither wanted opportunities of instruction, nor the inclination to profit by them. I have neglected no means of correcting or enlarging my own experience, which I may presume to have been more valuable for having set on foot, and for years super intended an institution of which it was the peculiar and leading object to bring together whole families, for the sake of making enquiries and comparisons, which should throw light on the rise and progress of our most formidable and insidious diseases.
I have now in hand a general tract for the use of the labouring part of the community; which shall be printed in as cheap a form as is consistent with legibility. This tract will be much in the manner of the Good Advice, which, by a very unlucky mistake in your last number, is said to sell for seven shillings in place of seven-pence.
The favourable reception of the said Good Advice, as it appeared first in the Newspapers, and afterwards by itself, has encouraged me to extend it.
Your’s, &c
Oct. 10, 1808. T. BEDDOES.
Published: The Monthly Magazine, 26 (1808), 345–46