formation which the work communicates on certain deranged states of the Alimentary Functions is, it must be allowed, not new or original. But it has the merit of being useful and practical, and it is conveyed in an agreeable and interesting form; and the therapeutic and hygienic directions are in general well founded. First published in 1826,* it had since that time attained, in 1837, the fifth edition. Differing in some degree, and superior in the application of chemical facts and chemical philosophy, the Treatise published in 1843 by the late Jonathan Pereira, is most creditable to the knowledge, the talents, and the ingenuity of that physician. Writing subsequently to the researches of Dr Prout, and many of the analyses of Boussingault, Dumas, Einhoff, Mulder, and Liebig, Dr Pereira has been enabled to present more ample, more complete, and more satisfactory views of the relations subsisting between the chemical constitution of articles used as food, and the living bodies which they are employed in nourishing, than had been done by any previous writer. In this department the author has shown extensive and accurate knowledge, and a talent for * A Treatise on Diet, with a view to establish, on Practical Grounds, a System of Rules for the Prevention and Cure of Diseases incident to a Disordered State of the Digestive Functions. By J. A. Paris, M.D., F.R.S. London, 1826. A Treatise on Food and Diet; with Observations on the Dietetical Regimen suited for Disordered States of the Digestive Organs, and an Account of the Dietaries of some of the Principal Metropolitan and other Establishments for Paupers, Lunatics, Criminals, Children, the Sick, &c. By Jonathan Pereira, M.D., F.R.S., &c. London, 1843. physiological reasoning, which renders his work one of great utility to the medical reader, The third great division of the Treatise of Dr Cullen, occupying the whole of the second volume, is devoted to the description of the various Medicines and Medicinal preparations employed in the treatment of Diseases. From the passages already quoted at pages 603 and 604, it cannot be difficult to understand what was the conception formed by Cullen of the requisites of a useful Treatise on Materia Medica. These passages may be regarded as showing, that it was the great, if not the first, duty of an author on Materia Medica, to consider the morbid states of the human body, to inquire in how many of these morbid states there were indications of attempts or spontaneous efforts at recovering from disease, in what cases these efforts required to be left to themselves, in what they required to be directed and aided by the interference of Art, and what was the kind and amount of the interference thus demanded. In this manner he formed what he called Indications of Cure, General and Particular; and by looking principally to the former, he believed that if he arranged Medicinal Agents according to these principles, he should accomplish all that a Teacher of Materia Medica could do. In conformity with these views, he gave a Tabular Arrangement of Medicines in the following manner : This arrangement has been more or less severely criticized by various authors,-Dr John Murray,* Dr * A System of Materia Medica and Pharmacy. By John Murray, Lecturer on Chemistry and on Materia Medica. In two Volumes. Edinburgh, 1810. Volume First, p. 120. Chapter II. It is perhaps scarcely worth while to remark, that Dr Murray not only criticizes the arrangement of Cullen with considerable severity, but adds, that "in the system of Brown, which succeeded that of Cullen, more just views were given of the relations of external agents to the living system, and of the laws regulating their action." (P. 122.) He allows, indeed, that "the operations of Medicines are, even in this system, imper Paris, and others. It is certainly sufficiently liable to various objections; as what classification is not? The distinctions are founded on various and heterogeneous characters,-physical, physiological, mechanical, and chemical; and it would be easy to show that several of the heads of distinction of one class or order might be arranged, and, in point of fact, arrange themselves under others. Thus it is quite impossible to get over the difficulty, that several Astringent medicines become in certain circumstances Tonics; that many of the family of Evacuants are local Stimulants or Irritants,—for instance, the Errhines, Sialogogues, Expectorants, Cathartics, and Diuretics; that Tonics become Emmenagogues, Sedatives, and Antispasmodics; that Cathartics and Diuretics may become Tonics and Antispasmodics; and, in short, that there is scarcely one member of any one of the classes which may not occasionally, and in particular circumstances, perform the part and duties assigned to and expected from others. Of all these objections, and there are not a few others which will occur to the mind of every practical physician,— Cullen was aware; and he virtually admits their force in the detailed separate histories which he afterwards gives of each class or order. fectly explained." If Dr Murray had attended to the fact, that the system of Brown, as to the operation of Medicines, was copied from Cullen, but rendered more confused, by neglecting some of the distinctions given and conditions prescribed by Cullen, he would have come nearer to the truth. *Pharmacologia. By John Ayrton Paris, M.D., Cant., &c. London, 1843. Ninth Edition. P. 165, 167. This table, therefore, we do not submit as either a perfect or faultless arrangement; and all that we allow can be said in its favour is, that it is a convenient classification, better certainly than none; that it has a smaller number of faults than any that preceded it; that it bore a close relation to the physiological principles and the pathological doctrines, which its author inculcated; and that it was for the manner and method, in which Cullen treated the subject of Materia Medica, the most suitable that presented itself. It is manifest that, from any tabular arrangement, much benefit cannot be expected. All of them are more or less artificial; and while their principal use is to facilitate the communication of knowledge in teaching, and to aid memory, by giving at one view a synoptical representation of the subject and its divisions, it must never be forgotten, that all these arrangements bear reference to the extent, the accuracy, and the practical applicability of our knowledge of facts, and that as new facts come to light, and new views and theories are deduced from them, all these tables and classifications require to be altered and modified, to be amplified or abridged. The chief recommendation of this table, nevertheless, is this, that it allies itself more closely than any that had preceded it, with physiological principles and pathological distinctions, and comes in this manner to be more directly useful to the philosophical and practical physician. Nor must it be forgotten, that even those writers who, like Dr Murray, found it necessary to criticize the arrangement, bore, nevertheless, unequivocal testimony to its general |