unnatural divisions amongst her children. The Church of Christ is indeed far beyond all human ties; but of all human ties, that to our country is the highest and most sacred; and England, to a true Englishman, ought to be dearer than the peculiar forms of the Church of England. Few have lived long without meeting, during their career in the world, men of great benevolence, great excellence, and worth. Such characters become objects of admiration and regard by the generosity of their sentiments, and the amiable confidence which they repose in the innocent hope of an amelioration of the human character, and in the ulterior prospect of a golden age of virtue. It is right that such men should have the credit of all the merit which belongs to them, and no one ought to be more ready to render them justice, than he who sincerely despairs of seeing realized the bright speculation which he cannot help admiring. ART. VI.-Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, in- Vol. I. WE are aware that a theory is much cultivated amongst intelligent persons, by which a prohibition is recommended to be enjoined on the indiscriminate perusal of all medical books. There are many sound reasons supplied by experience why the principle of such an interdict should be continued in operation. The injury which results merely by accident from such a practice is infinitely greater in the balance, than is any possible advantage to be derived from it. This admission, however, must be taken in reference only to the indiscriminate reading of medical works, inasmuch as the effect of such a course on non-professional minds must of necessity be injurious in suggesting apprehensions, or useless and troublesome precautions; and in destroying the serenity and sense of security as to his health which every man under ordinary circumstances will have the prudence to maintain. There are cases within the knowledge of most of us, in which it would be wanton cruelty to communicate the description of a particular disease: the bare representation of the symptoms of a malady have been known to operate on a sensitive imagination with an influence that would hardly be believed. Independently of this, there are numerous motives besides to support the policy of prohibiting the unqualified reading of works on medical subjects. What we have said, however, must not be interpreted as importing that no medical knowledge is appropriate to the unprofessional public. An assertion capable of conveying such an impression is altogether unwarrantable. Although the treatment employed by a physician may not be always capable of satisfactory explication-although a surgeon may not always render the origin of a disease intelligible to his patient, still it must be a very desirable object with every medical attendant to have the convictions of the patient with him. It often happens that the practitioner succeeds in his plan of treatment in consequence of the superior intelligence of the invalid under his care. To ignorance and stupidity, a complicated project for affecting a cure will appear mysterious, and perhaps alarming; while the educated patient, exercising his reason upon his acquired knowledge, will see the necessity of submission until the proper period arrives for the expected result to take place. It An acquaintance with general principles with regard to diseases and their cure, is, therefore, a very fitting material for diffusion amongst the public. The medical profession is interested in taking pains to enlighten society upon the sciences which form the peculiar subjects of their study: their plans of treatment are founded upon reason, and ingenuity, and experience, and what have they to lose from inquiry, from examination, or criticism of any kind? is not, then, against the circulation of medical knowledge that any reasonable man would oppose himself; but against the diffusion of it under circumstances which, instead of doing good, will be a fertile source of personal misery to many. We think that, by the manner in which the present work is brought to the notice of the general reader, we shall be able to furnish a specimen of the facility with which a book destined for merely professional students may be rendered useful to the public. The object of Dr. Thomson in this elaborate performance is to present to the medical student an explanation of those phenomena with which he is familiarly acquainted by every day's experience, but the grounds and principles of which are not so well known to him. A student of medicine witnesses hourly the influence of medicines in acting on the intestines, on the nervous system, on the skin, &c. He is so well versed in the powers of each medicine, that a desire to investigate it further never is excited in his mind by any doubt respecting its virtues. But it is obvious that something more is to be studied than the mere qualities of the substance itself, particularly when it is remembered that the result to be prouced immediately affects the life of a fellow-creature. Thus it is essentially necessary that one who orders medicine for a patient should have an exact acquaintance with the constitution and habits of that patient, because if certain medicines are given without attention to these circumstances, there may be some peculiarity of constitution in the patient that will render the dose a fatal one. To this particular branch of the inquiry, as it is treated by Dr. Thomson, we propose to confine ourselves at present. The effects of most medicinal preparations are described as pretty uniform in their action, all other circumstances being the same; but it is found that these effects are variously modified-that they are either checked or inordinately promoted by the following causes : the conformation of the body from birth, the age and sex of the patient, climate, social habits, employments, diet, nay, even superstitious and political relations. The temper, and, indeed, the degree of intellectual attainments of a patient, have something to do in interfering with what might be called the natural effects of medicine. To illustrate this statement, we may observe that it is a remark proceeding altogether from practical authority, that the pulse in short persons is much more frequent than in tall ones. But then it is also just as true, that the irritability of body is exactly in the inverse proportion in both cases. Cullen, one of the fathers of medicine, says he found in practice that men with short hands and feet, comparing the limbs with the rest of the body, are peculiarly liable to a plethoric state of the lungs. All these facts deserve the consideration of the physician, as they bear an important relation to the principles on which he should select the suitable medicine for his patients. If peculiarities of conformation make a difference in the action of medicine, varieties of constitution are capable of still further increasing the difference. Under this head comes the subject of nervous sensibility. This disorder is said to have affected Julius Cæsar, for though a man of unquestionable courage, yet he always had a fit of epilepsy on the eve of a battle. It is stated on indubitable authority, that the great Lord Bacon fell into a swoon every time the moon was at its full. In the Elements of Pathology and Therapeutics, by Dr. Parry, that eminent physician relates that a lady of his acquaintance, who had long ceased to perform the duties of a nurse, could never hear an infant cry but a copious secretion of milk instantaneously followed. Temperament is another property of human beings whose variations it is important to consult in the administration of medicine. But that attribute which requires the most careful investigation from the practitioner, is called idiosyncracy, or very unusual peculiarities, which display themselves in a great variety of forms. Some of these we shall state on the authority of Dr. Thomson: The sense of smelling is also sometimes the seat of idiosyncracy. Thus, some individuals cannot bear the smell of cheese without experiencing nausea and an inclination to vomit: others are affected by severe dyspnœa, or difficulty of breathing, by the odour of ipecacuanha; and some experience the most distressing effects even from the scent of different flowers. I know a lady who suffered violent headache the moment she entered a room were the African Geranium, the Pelargonium, was growing, or where any of its cuttings were in water: and another, who could not sustain the most delightful scent of all others, that of the Rose, when concentrated in the essential oil or Otto, without fainting. There are even instances in which the odour of the natural flower cannot be supported without producing violent headache, succeeded by fainting. M. Orfila states that the celebrated Parisian painter, Vincent, suffers in this manner. In some most offensive smells are preferred to the most delightful: Louis XIV. was pleased only with the most offensive odours, and preferred that of the urine of the cat to that of the rose: Sauvage, the distinguished nosologist, preferred the smell of putrid and foetid exhalations to that of pleasantly odorous plants. But idiosyncracy displays itself most remarkably when certain substances are taken into the stomach. Few things, for example, are more easily digested and less stimulant than white of egg; yet, in some persons, whether it be eaten in its raw and fluid or its boiled and coagulated state, it causes sickness. The late celebrated Dr. James Gregory, Professor of the Practice of Medicine at Edinburgh, used to relate of himself, that the smallest portion of the white of egg, taken into his stomach, was almost immediately followed by an eruption on the skin, similar to nettle-rash; and an instance of the same kind is mentioned by Donatus, of a boy whose jaws swelled, whose face broke out in spots, and whose lips frothed whenever he ate an egg. Boerhaave mentions the case of a person who swelled all over after having eaten a few cherries or gooseberries; and, in Dr. Pultney's Life of Linnæus, we are informed that strawberries act as a poison on some persons, causing syncope, succeeded by a petechial efflorescence of the skin. Tissot mentions the case of a friend of his who could not eat sugar without vomiting. There are some people who can digest beef and the strongest meats easily, but who cannot eat the tenderest chicken without suffering from indigestion. To some persons coffee acts as an emetic. Numerous instances of a similar kind might be mentioned; but these are sufficient to show the influence of idiosyncracy in modifying the effects of the ordinary articles of diet upon the frame; and if such be the case with regard to food, there is, certainly, less reason for wondering that medicines should be equally under its controul. Haller details a case in which syrup of roses produced convulsions; and Gabius affirms that he has seen crabs' eyes, a mild testaceous powder, which is now seldom prescribed, produce all the effects of an over-dose of arsenic. Dr. James assured Sir George Baker, that he knew six instances of antimony producing salivation, although the teeth were not loosened, nor was the breath affected with any fœtor. Dr. Parry mentions an instance of a young lady who never took an emetic without a long continued coryza immediately following that operation. Dr. Heberden states that he had seen several individuals in whom the internal use of valcrian root caused nettle rash and Sir Henry Halford in a paper which he read in the College of Physicians on tic douloureux, mentioned the case of a boy of eleven years of age, in whom a dose of rhubarb was followed, three different times, by an epileptic fit; and, also, instances of three persons in the same family, on whom the same medicine always produced strangury. Schenkius relates a case in which the general law of astringents and cathartics was always reversed. I know a lady, the wife of physician, whose general health is good, and whose frame of body is not delicate, yet she cannot take the smallest dose of calomel without falling into the most alarming syncope: in whatever form the medicine is given, or however cautiously disguised, still the effect is the same, and equally severe in proportion to the extent of the dose. Other of the vital functions, as well as those of digestion and assimilation. display similar singularities. In some persons the pulse is more regular in disease than in health. I knew an instance in which the pulse was always less frequent in fever then in health: the patient was a man seven feet in In a state of height, proportionately robust, and of great muscular power. health his pulse never exceeded forty-five beats in the minute; and, when he was feverish, it fell to forty. The pulse of Napoleon Bonaparte never exceeded forty-four, in a state of health. Dr. Heberden, in the second volume of the Transactions of the College of Physicians, mentions a woman of fifty years of age, who had always an intermitting pulse; yet, after her death, an able anatomist could discover nothing unusual either in the structure or the condition of the heart, or of any part of the vascular system.-pp. 42-45. The author enters into an explanation of these phenomena; but it is purely hypothetical, and might, without the slightest injury to the progress of science, have been altogether superseded, by a candid declaration that nothing whatever is known upon the subject. - A considerable modification of the power of medicine is effected by differences of age. In infancy the circulation of the blood is much more rapid than in the adult age. The beating of the pulse is retrograde as time advances: its beats are 140 in the new-born infant in a minute; 120 in a child one year old; 100 in a child nearly two years old; 96 in a child between the second and fourth year; and at puberty the pulse is usually 70, or thereabouts. In speaking of puberty, Dr. Thomson observes, that its marks are sometimes developed at a very early period. In Pliny's Natural History (lib. vii. cap. 17) there is an account of a boy of Salamis who attained puberty at four years of age. Craterus is stated by Gall to have been a father before he was seven years of age, and to have displayed at the end of that time all the common tokens of old age. In the Philosophical Transactions is a well authenticated account of a boy born at Wallingham, near Cambridge, in whom all the signs usually characterising full manhood were visible when he was merely a year old. This person died in 1747, and though he was not quite six years of age, he had all the genuine characters of old age. The 12th volume of the MedicoChirurgical Transactions contains a paper in which a similar case is recorded. The boy's name was John Sparrow, and his birthplace was Long Milford, Sussex. At fifteen months he was in a perfect state of puberty; but this is only true of his physical conformation; the mind was in the imperfect state of that of a child. The modifications to which the effects of medicines are subject by reason of the difference of sex, present nothing of an important nature, except what may be easily conjectured; we therefore proceed to consider the influence of custom or habit upon the action of medicinal substances. Dr. Thomson first considers the power of habit, as it controls the mind, and next, as it operates on the body. One of the most remarkable results to which it gives rise is, the diminution of the sensibility of the nervous system. Thus |