add our regret that it has not been completed with more success. A few, and but a few, of the plates are well executed; and the great majority are so coarsely managed, as to have a discreditable appearance. They have indeed greatly disappointed those expectations which we had formed from the well-known talents and ingenuity of

the author.

Part I.

Art. 25. A Treatise on the Cow-Pox; containing the History of Vaccine Inoculation, and an Account of the various Publications which have appeared on that Subject, in Great Britain, and other Parts of the World. By John Ring. 8vo. pp. 500. 8s. Boards. Carpenter, &c. 1801. This work is an ample compilement of every important publication that has appeared on the subject of vaccine inoculation. The author is a zealous advocate for the practice: but, as the public opinion is now decided in its favour, some of his arguments and much of his declamation may appear superfluous. Mr. Aikin's smaller and more readable tract will supply ucarly every thing useful on the subject. The language of Mr. Ring's book is, in truth, occasionally so in flated, that it is ill adapted to scientific purposes; and, though much valuable information is brought together in his volume, it rather oppresses than enlightens the reader, from a total want of arrange. ment and discrimination. The substance of many of these papers might have been compressed into a compilation of moderate bulk, without in any degree weakening the evidence, or diminishing the actual quantity of knowlege, which they contain.

Fortunately for the public, this great problem is now settled in favour of Dr. Jenner's discovery; the doubts which had arisen, from the use of improper matter in some cases, and which we at one time could not help expressing, are now completely removed; and the practice is only better understood, and more firmly established, in consequence of the discussion. Seldom, indeed, has a medical question of importance been so speedily determined: to this decision, the modesty and candour of Dr. Jenner have eminently contributed; and in these respects we may propose him as a model to all who may have occasion to engage in medical controversy.

Art. 26. An Essay on the Yellow Fever of Jamaica. By David Grant, M. D. 8vo. pp. 65. 38. Robinsons. 1801.

Nearly one half of this production is employed in a defence of the slave-trade, on which we shall not now offer any observations. At p. 27, Dr. Grant begins his account of the yellow fever; which, he informs us, was the remittent endemic fever of the island, and not contagious. His description of the symptoms agrees with that of most other writers. In the method of cure, he strongly advisees bleeding; which, he says, affords great relief from the head-ach; and after this, mercurial purgatives are recommended. ing, Dr. Grant thinks, is injurious. After evacuations, he proposes a large dose of Peruvian bark.

Vomit

Small as this pamphlet is, and particularly with reference to its price, the quantity of real information contained in it is in very little proportion to its bulk. It is also necessary to observe that the

language

language is extremely incorrect; sometimes ungrammatical; and sometimes deformed by barbarisms. The first sentence of the dedication to the Duke of Clarence extends through a page and half, and at last concludes without the clause necessary to render it intelligible: we shall insert this curious specimen of composition, which is really a non-descript in literature.

The interest which your Royal Highness has pleased to take in the support of the rights of the West-Indian Colonies, (rights derived from, and repeatedly sanctioned and confirmed by, the Legislature of the Parent State, and which are calculated to produce an increasing source of riches and strength to the Empire at large,) by your firmly opposing, when agitated, the Abolition of the African SlaveTrade; without which the present cultivation of that inestimable island, the Island of Jamaica, cannot be sustained, nor extensive tracts of waste land brought into cultivation; and your endeavours to check the maledictions of party spirit and frantic enthusiasm, cruelly and wantonly bestowed on the Colonists, respecting the treatment of their Negroes, from your own personal knowlege of the island, and the general benevolence of its inhabitants; confirmed at the same time, by referring to the slave-laws of the colony, and by the fullest force of evidence from men of dignified characters, the Governors and Admirals of that island; men disinterested, and therefore not liable to be actuated upon by either prejudice or enthu siasm, and whose situations not only afforded them time, but the most extensive and best opportunities for accurate information; and this evidence likewise still further corroborative, as taken in the most solemn manner at the Bar of your House-the highest temporal tribunal and purest fountain of justice.'

This period evidently wants an appendix.

Art. 27. A short Account of the Climate of Madeira; with Instructions to those who resort thither for the Recovery of their Health. By Joseph Adams, M. D., Physician in the Island of Madeira. 8vo. Is. Longman and Rees. 1801.

This pamphlet contains information which will be very useful to patients whose complaints require a voyage to Madeira. The following general account will afford an idea of the prospect for invalids, from this change of climate :

In all cases of tubercular or scrofulous consumption, if, as it has been expressed, the patient does not saunter away his time after he has been advised to leave England, we can with certainty promise a cure.

Where the lungs are ulcerated from other causes, it remains to be determined, whether there are powers remaining in the constitution to effect a cure if the patient is placed in the most favourable circumstances; for though we see many recover from a situation which invariably proves fatal during the winter in England, yet we have also instances in which an emaciated carcase has been surrendered to the waves during the voyage, or arrived only early enough to be decently interred. In an earlier period of the disease, there can be no situation in the world so well calculated for the restoration of diseased lungs, as the island of Madeira.'.

Dr. Adams

Dr. Adams attributes this degree of success to the dryness of the atmosphere, and the equal temperature of the climate; and we are glad to find, from his account, that patients may now be accommodated at Funchall, on moderate terms.-We recommend, in course, the perusal of this little tract to all those who are interested in the fate of consumptive subjects.

Art. 28.

A Letter to Sir Walter Farquhar, Bart. on the Subject of a particular Affection of the Bowels, very frequent and fatal in the East-Indies. Svo. 28. Cadell jun: and Davies. 1802.

The disease here described is an inflammation of the colon: but we have some doubt whether the appearances have been so entirely overlooked by authors, as this writer imagines. We shall quote his general account of the symptoms:

The disease of which I speak, and which is by much the most acute and fatal I have met with in India, is an Inflammation of the Colon, attended, from the beginning, with a severe fixed pain above the pubes; with extreme difficulty of making water, and frequently an entire suppression of urine. There is, at the same time, a violent and almost unceasing evacuation from the bowels of a matter peculiar to the disease, and which I cannot describe more correctly, than by observing that it exactly resembles water in which raw flesh had been washed or macerated. There is always a very high fever, with unquenchable thirst and perpetual watchfulness. The pulse is extremely hard, frequent, and strong, resembling that which takes place in the highest degree of Pleurisy or the most acute Rheumatism; and there is a burning heat in the skin, which leaves a sensation on the finger, as if it had touched a piece of heated metal.'

The fixed pain, and the strangury, are mentioned by Lommius as characteristic of inflammation of the Colon.

Purgatives are deemed injurious in this complaint, by the present author; and he seems to place his chief dependance for a cure, on opium judiciously administered.

Mr. Duncan (for this is the rame subscribed to the letter) seems to believe that the Hepatitis, to which Europeans are so peculiarly liable in the East, is not often a primary complaint, but that the irritation originates in the alimentary canal: that it is in consequence of loss of tone, irregularity, and disorder in the bowels, that the functions of the liver are first disturbed, and that this organ becomes subject to inflammation and obstruction.' If this be generally the case, Mr. D.'s view of the causes of Hepatitis adds strength to Mr. Scott's recommendation of the nitrous acid, in that complaint.

Art. 29. Observations on the Cow Pock. By John Coakley Lettsom, M. & LL.D. 8vo. 3s. Mawinan. 1801.

The question respecting vaccine inoculation being now so generally decided, we have no occasion for entering into the reasoning and facts contained in this pamphlet. It manifests the most lively interest in the subject, but it is written with a pomp of language

Observat. Medicinal. p. 169.

which

which is not well adapted to modern times. Dr. L. talks, for ex ample, of the periphery of his associates, meaning the circle of his acquaintance; and of the lactarious fountains, meaning the dugs of the cow. This is "too picked, too peregrinate*," for us. Some curious facts, however, are here recorded; and among them is the following:

Although the Cow-pock had long since been found by incidental experience a security against the small-pox, it had never been applied to any beneficial purpose, till the genius of Jenner discriminated its powers, and introduced it into practice, as a permanent security against the variolous infection. This preventive quality of the vaccine fluid was certainly known even to scientific professional men many years ago; but, strange as it may now appear, no one, till Jenner promulgated his discovery, had ever improved that knowledge, by applying it to the process of inoculation. About twenty years, ago, when Dr. Archer was the physician of the hospital for inocula tion, Catharine Wilkins, now Titchenor, from Cricklade, in Wiltshire, who had had the Cow-pock in consequence of milking cows, came to her brother in London, (where she is now resident,) who, being desirous of ascertaining whether this circumstance could be depended upon as preventive of the small-pox, sent her to the hospital for inoculation, when she received the variolous matter from Dr. Archer; against which, however, she was proof, and the small-pox of course could not be communicated; but no advantage was derived from this fact.

Archer was a prudent, cautious, and rather timid practitioner ; and the hospital for inoculation owes much of its importance to his persevering attention to its interests; but he neither possessed the spirit of penetrating inquiry of Woodville; nor the genius of discovery of that man, who was destined to form a new era in medical practice.'

After this specimen of the Doctor's good sense, we shall present our readers with a sample of his eloquence:

When Herschell fixed the site of the Georgium Sidus in the great volume of the heavens, you raised the theme of ardent praise to this unrivalled astronomer; but what is the Georgium Sidus, in competition with the Jennerian discovery! Has it conveyed to one human being a single ray of advantage? Contemplate with impartiality the latter, whose beneficent rays are destined to dissipate the gloomy atmosphere of pestilential mortality; whose fatal victims, I am bold to suggest, amount to 210,000 annually in Europe alone! Does this reflection admit of a coldness of description? Dip your pens in ætherial and indelible ink !-Impress your observations in characters legible to the most distant regions of the globe!'

Not relying implicitly on this amazing power of language, Dr. Lettsom has called in the aid of the engraver, and has exhibited the sacred cow, in a vignette on his title page; with attributes better suited to the superstition of a Hindoo, than to the notions of a

* Shakspeare.

rational

rational Christian *. We cannot join in transferring the gratitude due to Providence, for this great discovery, to the poor quadruped, which has become the unconscious medium of such an essential benefit.

The extraordinary facts, now authenticated respecting the cowpock, open a wide and curious field of inquiry into the origin and relations of the class of exanthemata.

Art. 30. A Treatise on Opthalmy †, and those Diseases which are induced by Inflammations of the Eyes. With New Methods of Cure. By Edward Moore Noble, Surgeon. Part the Second. 8vo. 4s. Robinsons. 1801.

After having treated of the theory of this disease according to the Brunonian system, and of the cure of active inflammation, Mr. Noble proceeds to consider the irritable chronic states of the disease; or, in his own words, the Opthalmy proceeding from a deficiency of stimulus.' This part of the treatise contains many practical remarks which deserve attention, and which would have been still more valuable, if they had been translated into common language.-By the new methods of cure mentioned in the title-page, we suppose that readers must understand the more recent methods recommended by writers, because several of the plans enjoined by Mr. Noble are taken from the publications of Mr. Ware and other authors. As he has fairly quoted his authorities, on those heads, we mention this with no other view than to prevent the disappointment of professional men, who might open the pamphlet with hopes of finding discoveries in the modes of treatment.

The topical applications, on which Mr. Noble chiefly depends at the commencement of this species of ophthalmia, are

A, caloric, applied by means of water; and

B, pure alcohol, diluted with water, either with or without a small quantity of camphor.'

That is, in plain English, warm water, or camphorated spirit of wine. With regard to the strength of the latter application, the author observes :

In general, I find two drachms of the rectified spirit of wine, or a drachm and a half of the camphorated spirit, answer very well; but I must observe, it is of consequence towards success, to have the mixture of a proper strength; for if the pain it causes is very severe, it will stimulate the eye too much, and the patient will not allow of its application long enough to bring on that peculiar action of the vessels that is wished for, when the inflammation will be increased, instead of abated, as will shortly appear to be the case, if tinctura opii is applied at the commencement of a violent Opthalmy. If, on the other hand, it should be too weak, its effects will be slight and

*Dr. L. has also given portraits of Drs. Jenner, Pearson, Woodville, and other physicians who have distinguished themselves by their attention to this subject.

The author perseveres in thus mis-spelling the word, of which we took notice in our account of Part I.; see Rev. vol. xxxvi. p. 208. transitory,