The disease now advanced rapidly. Napoleon was occasionally insensible, had oppressed breathing, spasmodic heaving of the muscles over the stomach, loss of voluntary power over the limbs, general agitation of the body, occasional delirium, icy coldness of the lower limbs, a pulse of 110 scarcely perceptible and intermitting, incessant hiccough, acrid eructations, vomiting of dark liquid He died on the 5th. On the 6th the body was opened by Antommarchi, in the presence of Drs. Short, Mitchell, Bruton, and other medical gentlemen.

matter.

And now arrived the moment which was to verify and approve, or falsify and disgrace, the opinions entertained and the remedies employed successively by O'Meara and Antommarchi-the mercurial courses of the first, and the antimonial emetics of the last. According to them Napoleon's disease had depended on the climate in which he was placed-it was chronic inflammation of the liver, and this had been going on from the summer of 1817 down to the time of his death, the 5th May, 1821, nearly four years. If this had been the case, what would have been the state in which the liver would have been found? We could venture to answer this question ourselves, but we prefer giving the answer from the Morbid Anatomy' of the late Dr. Baillie, a writer remarkable for his accuracy, and a physician in whose statements very many of our readers have had reason to feel confidence. Speaking of inflammation of the substance of the liver, he says, ' when this inflammation has continued for some time, abscesses are formed, and then the active state of the inflammation very much ́subsides. These abscesses are sometimes of large size, so as even to contain some pints of pus-sometimes the whole of the liver is almost converted into a bag containing pus.'

For more than a year and a half Antommarchi had been talking and writing about chronic inflammation of the liver, and declaring that he could feel it enlarged and indurated near the pit of the stomach. It was important, therefore, that he should find something after death to corroborate these statements, and he probably would have succeeded, if the dissection had been performed in the absence of medical witnesses; but unluckily there were persons present who had eyes as clear, judgments as competent, and integrity, to say the least, as unquestionable as his own. All, therefore, which remained for him to do, was to introduce into the account of the dissection a few words which might lead those who are ignorant of medicine to suppose that he had made no mistake. His words are these:

The spleen and the liver, which was hardened, were very large and distended with blood. The texture of the liver, which was of a brownish red colour, did not, however, exhibit any remarkable alteration of strucM 4

ture.

ture. The vesica fellis was filled and distended with very thick and clotted bile. The liver, which was affected by chronic hepatitis, closely adhered by its convex surface to the diaphragm; the adhesion occupied the whole extent of that organ, and was strong, cellular, and of long existence.'

In this account, the expressions the liver, which was hardened,' and the liver, which was affected by chronic hepatitis,' might induce a general reader to suppose that Antommarchi had found what he expected; but any medical man will easily see through the fraud. If the texture of the liver, as he says, did not exhibit any remarkable alteration of structure, how could it be said to be affected by chronic hepatitis, and that, be it remembered, for nearly four years? Either he does not know the changes which chronic hepatitis induces in the liver, or it is a statement purposely fraudulent. On examining the stomach, however, the diseased appearance of this organ was too remarkable and extensive to escape disclosure.

On examining that organ with care,' says he, 'I discovered on its an◄ terior surface, near the small curve, and at the breadth of three fingers from the pylorus, a slight obstruction, apparently of a schirrous nature, of very small extent, and exactly defined. The stomach was perforated through and through in the centre of that small induration, and the aperture was closed by the adhesion of that part to the left lobe of the liver. *** The mucous membrane of the stomach was sound from the small to the large cavity of this organ, following the great curve. Almost the whole of the remainder of the internal surface of the stomach was occupied by a cancerous ulcer. An ulcerous, greyish and smooth surface lined this canal, which, but for the adhesion of the liver, would have established a communication between the cavity of the stomach and that of the abdomen. The right extremity of the stomach, at the distance of an inch from the pylorus, was surrounded by a tumour.' (This was the tumour felt during life, and mistaken for the liver.)

Amidst this jargon (and there is much more which we have been obliged to omit) the attentive reader will perceive that the diseased appearances discovered on dissection, were, 1st, a cancerous ulcer of the stomach, so extensive as to spread over almost the whole of its inside; 2dly, a hole in the stomach, which this cancerous ulcer had eaten, and through which every thing which was swallowed would have run out among the bowels, if it had not been for, 3dly, an adhesion between the part of the stomach which the disease had perforated, and that surface of the liver which lay opposite to it the surface of the liver was, as it were, glued over the hole in the stomach, so as to shut it up, and prevent any thing from running out through it. This is one of the most common and wonderful provisions of nature, to stop the ravages or counteract the injuries of disease. The adhesion, it is true, is the effect of inflammation

inflammation on the surfaces of the liver and of the stomach thus glued together. But this inflammation is the effect of the ulcer, an effort of nature to counteract the injuries of the disease, and totally different to that inflammation of the substance of the liver which is called chronic hepatitis, and which a tropical climate occasions. If Antommarchi had ever had any professional reputation, an ignorance of this distinction, whether affected or real, would have effectually destroyed his character, either for honesty or for knowledge. We have the report of the dissection, which was drawn up and signed by the English medical officers who were present on that occasion-Drs. Short, Arnott, Mitchell, Bruton, and Mr. Livingstone. It goes to confirm the statement which we have already made out from the unintentional jargon or the intentional evasions of Antommarchi- that, with the exception of the adhesions, no unhealthy appearance presented itself in the liver.' But besides this, we have before us an account of the scene by one of the professional eye-witnesses.

'O'Meara,' says he, and Antommarchi had stoutly affirmed that his principal disease was in the liver; hence, when the liver was examined, the countenances of the spectators indicated much anxiety. When Antommarchi made his first incision into it, he expected to see a flow of pus from the abscess which had been anticipated in its substance; but no abscess, no hardness, no enlargement, no inflammation were observed; on the contrary, the liver was of natural size, and perfectly healthy in its internal structure-only the convex surface of the left lobe adhered for a small space to the diaphragm, and to that part of the stomach in which the perforation was seated.'

However little our readers may know of medicine, if they have perused attentively the foregoing description they must have drawn for themselves the inference which we are about to statenamely, that the disease of which Napoleon died was not chronic inflammation of the liver, or disease of the liver of any kind, but that it was a most extensive cancerous ulcer of the stomach. But to show how clear and decisive was the evidence for this conclusion, we should state that it was completely satisfactory even to those friends of Napoleon who were with him at St. Helena. In a letter written by Count Montholon to the Countess, dated 6th May, 1821, the day of the dissection, he says,

'L'ouverture de son corps a eu lieu ce matin; elle a prouvé qu'il était mort de la même maladie que son père, un schirre ulcéreux à l'estomac; près le pylore, les de la face de l'estomac étaient ulcérés→ il est probable que depuis quatre à cinq ans, l'ulcère avait commencé. C'est dans notre malheur, une grande consolation pour nous que d'avoir acquis la preuve, que sa mort n'est, et n'a pu être, en aucune manière, le

résultat

résultat de sa captivité, ni de la privation de tous les soins que peut-être l'Europe eut pu offrir à l'espérance.'

It is clear, indeed, that Napoleon's case was mistaken and mistreated from beginning to end, first by O'Meara, and lastly by Antommarchi; and that additional and unnecessary sufferings were inflicted on him, by mercurial courses and antimonial emetics -the result of the grossest ignorance in those whom he had the misfortune to trust; but it is equally clear that his death was totally independent of the climate of St. Helena, or of any cause within the controul of the English government; and this is the short point which we have been desirous of establishing.

ART. VII.-Reasons against the Repeal of the Usury Laws. London. 1825.

THAT any interference on the part of the legislature with the

management of the property of individuals, by regulating the rate of profit which they shall derive from their dealings with one another, tends to retard the increase of national wealth, and consequently the diffusion of those comforts and conveniences of which wealth supplies the means, is now so universally admitted, that it would be a mere waste of time to demonstrate it. It is become therefore a general rule, that the legislature ought to abstain from such interference. There may be exceptions to this, as well as to other general rules, but the propriety of such exceptions must in all cases be strictly proved, and cannot be presumed merely from the authority of past times; because we know that both the opinions and practice of our ancestors were in many respects opposed to this principle, the establishment of which is one of the modern triumphs of political science. Now that it is established, however, the presumption necessarily arises, that any particular law which can be shown to be irreconcileable with it, is a bad one; and it does not lie upon those who propose an alteration in the law to prove this, but upon those who are for maintaining the law to show that, on account of some special circumstances, it is fit to be preserved. Our business then in delivering our judgment upon the pamphlet before us is to consider whether it makes out such a case as may justify the legislature in continuing to make an exception to the rule in the case of the traffic in money. We believe indeed that the author would be very glad, if he dared, to impeach the soundness of the rule itself, to which he takes every opportunity of showing his dislike. No wonder therefore if he sets about his task with a fretful reluctance to admit its practical application, and is much inclined to cry down those, who propose so to apply it, as speculative theorists.

Under

Under the influence of these feelings he has greatly, we hope not intentionally, misrepresented both the arguments and conduct of those who are opposed to him. He states the design of his work in the following passage:

'If a fair examination of the practical operation of the usury laws on the different classes of society should show that these laws do in truth produce much good at the expense of little inconvenience; that, while they restrain and limit to a very narrow field those usurious practices, which, whenever and wherever we can trace them as generally prevalent, have produced suffering, discontent, and turbulence, they do not injuriously fetter the internal trade, or foreign commerce of the country; that, on the contrary, their indirect effects have a strong tendency to give solidity and safety to the real progress of the nation: if it should appear, that, far from prejudicing the land-holders, they are certainly highly instrumental, perhaps essentially necessary to preserve to them, as a body, a character of moderate permanence, a character which they could not wholly lose without losing all their wholesome influence on the constitution and the manners of the country; and, that the complete annihilation of the present law must needs be, in all its diversified and widely spreading consequences, a fearful and intricate experiment upon the moral habits of the great body of the people, from which there is every reason to expect a result equally painful and unmanageable; then it will be admitted that the projected change throws a solemn responsibility upon those who, viewing too lightly its probable operations, or following too hastily in the train of theories they have not cautiously examined, may suffer themselves to be persuaded to join in this dangerous game of disturbing, without any proved necessity, the habits and peace of their countrymen.

"I would willingly do something towards the useful task of rescuing the question from the dominion of those wide and sweeping general principles, which the slightest acquaintance with its details will show, may indeed create powerful delusions, but can never throw any useful light upon the subject; and I propose, therefore, to examine, as far as the materials which are in every one's hands will enable me, what the most obvious and important practical effects of the projected repeal would be upon the different classes of the community. So completely however have the maxims and speculations of theoretical writers mixed themselves with the facts of the case in the public mind, that even the practical inquiry I propose can hardly be intelligibly conducted without clearing the way by examining some of those speculations.

I shall not be accused of shrinking from the task of meeting the arguments on the other side in their greatest strength if I select the treatise of Mr. Bentham and the evidence laid before the committee of the House of Commons, which made its report in 1818, as the basis of the theories and the facts I mean to analyse.—pp. 2-4.

Having thus selected his antagonists, the author, before he attacks their intellectual strength, seems to think that it may be as well to deprive them of the aid of any public sympathy, by show