long since forgotten, if indeed to man they were ever known. Gentlemen, I have selected my illustrations of the utility of botany from the general, rather than from the medical departments of the science, and for two reasons: first, because I have previously discussed at some length the advantages of botany to medicine; and, secondly, because if medical botany has ever deserved reprobation, it has been from the tendency exhibited during the time this science was disgraced by being made a subordinate branch of materia medica, to confine the attention of the medical student merely to the diagnostic characters of plants, neglecting those more interesting and philosophic inquiries which alone constitute the study of plants a science, and distinguished modern botany from ancient herbcraft. Unwillingly do I hint at, rather than describe, and still more reluctantly do I wholly omit many topics of importance, and yet am I compelled to the omission; for I should fatigue you, were I but barely to enumerate the various fruits which this lovely science bears profusely on every branch, and proffers freely to every uplifted hand. The more immediate utilities of botany I have not even named, for if the less practical points be deserving your attention, the more useful cannot be unworthy your regard. Such I mean as the diagnosis of plants, which is the province of systematic botany; and economic botany, which teaches to apply to useful purposes the plants which are thus distinguished, either as articles of diet, as medicines, or in the arts, and tells us how, by culture, to ameliorate our food, increase or regulate the power of our drugs, and insure for trade regular supplies of proper materials for many different uses. These and other advantages of botany are so notorious, that I should have thought it a waste of words for them even to have been named, had they not been peremptorily denied, and bearing in mind that such as I have faintly indicated, is the real tenor and scope of botany, although much allowance must be made for the shortness and feebleness of the detail; such, I repeat, being the scope of the science, and such the points to which it has been progressively advancing, and to which it has now advanced, you will probably feel surprised to hear that the reproaches, which were manifestly unjust, when preferred against it formerly, have been lately reiterated, and that by an annalist, pretending to sketch physic and its professors truly as they now exist. These papers containing this attack are too curious to be allowed to drop wholly into oblivion; they are perhaps the last efforts of that expiring prejudice, which even now is not quite extinct, and as such, I shall beg your permission to make some extracts; they will require but little comment for their refutation. "Botany," says this veracious historian, 66 66 Botany is in a declining state," (and all whose notable advances to which I have cursorily alluded, are represented as symptoms of this decline; for he continues,) Botany has indeed been growing up of late; but it is with a sickly wild luxuriancy, the common precursor of premature decay; and the time is not very far distant when it will have completely dropped off, as a useless branch of medical education." A prophecy, as you will perceive, not yet fulfilled, nor under the present aspect of affairs, very likely to be accomplished. But to our extracts. "How it could have so long contrived to occupy a place, and a prominent place too, among those branches of knowledge, deemed indispensable to the physician, can only be explained by the fortuitous arrangement of circumstances." Chance is a very unphilosophic cause for any thing; and we who understand the true value of botany, can easily comprehend the cause of its being made an indispensable study to the physician. But I will conclude the extracts without further comment. writer thus continues, The "There is certainly no sort of knowledge, however humble, that does not possess some little share of intrinsic importance; and it is in this respect only that botany can be deemed worthy of a certain degree of consideration." "That it is of the least possible use to the physician, in the practice of his profession, I am strongly inclined to deny. No doubt the extensive knowledge requisite for completing the education of the accomplished physician, should embrace this branch of natural history also, but for the purposes of the healing art, botany is positively worse than useless." And a little further on, Concerning the medicinal efficacy of plants, botany teaches us nothing." "Again; it may be observed, that most other sciences tend to develope the faculties, imparting a comprehensive and expanding influence; but botany, numerous instances show, has a tendency quite of an opposite character. "By fixing the attention upon minute objects and considerations, it contracts the intellectual as well as moral qualities." "Further, it may be stated as an authenticated fact, that few great men have been distinguished as botanists merely; those who have ever obtained a character in this way, were such as would have been as great in the path of celestial mechanics, had they turned their attention to that study. We cannot forget the multifarious talents and pursuits of Linnæus and of Haller. Haller, like Rousseau, studied botany merely as a recreation; and indeed, Rousseau himself was as much an enthusiast upon this as upon many other subjects equally useless." The above are but parts of the virulent attack to which I have alluded, and which is summoned up with the following affirmation, that," although he is aware these remarks must prove rather unpalatable, the author trusts to their truth and strength for their apology." Such, gentlemen, are the denunciations levelled at botany, such the arrows which the author barbs, by affirming, that although he is aware 66 they must prove rather unpalatable," he "trusts to their truth and strength for their apology." Botany has been thus, as it were, put upon her trial, and three very serious counts appear in the indictment. 1st. That "concerning the medicinal efficacy of plants, botany teaches us nothing; and that, "for the purposes of the healing art, botany is positively worse than useless." 2d. That botany can be deemed worthy of a certain degree of consideration only, because there is certainly no sort of knowledge, however humble, that does not possess some little share of intrinsic importance." 3d. That" it contracts the intellectual as well as the moral qualities.” “And that, while most other sciences tend to develope the faculties, imparting a comprehensive and expanding influence, botany has a tendency of quite an opposite character." These indeed, are serious accusations, and should botany be cast on any one of them, its present (we believe well-deserved) reputation would at once give way, and without chance of redemption, to obloquy and reproach. But to all these grave charges the science pleads not guilty. It denies that the study of plants either is or can be unworthy the attention of the philosopher, whether medical or general. It denies that enthusiastic botanists have been enthusiasts on a useless subject. It denies that for the purposes of the healing art botany is positively worse than useless; and it rebuts with strong, yet calm indignation, the charge that it has a tendency to contract the intellectual as well as the moral qualities. To the first and second objections answers already have been returned, and hereafter practical answers shall again be given; in which examples shall be brought to prove that botany is not useless to the general, nor worse than useless to the medical philosopher. The demonstration is only at this time deferred, because I have already encroached too much on your patience, to trespass any further on your attention now; but perhaps at a no distant future meet ing, the Council will permit me to return to the topics thus postponed, and then enlarge more fully on the three departments of our much-loved science, than could possibly be done in the few remaining minutes of this lecture; viz. Vegetable Physics, Systematic and Economic Botany, from each of which abundant evidence may be drawn of In the advantages of a study which has been so presumptuously condemned. But, gentlemen, I scarcely think that botanists are called upon, and indeed I know not whether we are even justified in giving a serious and formal answer to charges so manifestly absurd. the early part of this lecture I enumerated some few of the very many points on which I am disposed to think the study of botany throws no little light; to these I refer, and these I should have been contented to refer again in such general terms alone, did not the accusations quoted seem to require some more specific answer. To you, gentlemen, I do not address this answer (but to the sceptic who has raised these cavils it has been addressed, and if not convinced, at least he has been silenced,) for it would be an insult to your understandings, who have formed this society, devoted to the advancement of medical botany; it would be an insult to all those liberal and enlightened men who have for ages past associated themselves together for the promotion of the study of plants, to attempt to prove the value of botany. Those only doubt its use who know it not, and when they know it, they will no longer doubt. Still, as the libeller unblushingly affirmed "the truth and strength" of his accusations, it became our duty to disabuse those who might be deceived, and to demonstrate their utter falsity and weakness. The importance of botany to the general philosopher is immediately confessed by all who know any thing of the discoveries made in vegetable physics. To take but a single illustration: organic botany lately has revealed two very extraordinary phenomena, the full value of which we are as yet unable to determine--I mean the molecular motion, discovered by the celebrated Mr. Robert Brown, and electro-filtration, since called endosmose, discovered by Porrett and Dutrochet; are these unworthy the attention of philosophers? can such truths be useless in philosophy? Again; the doctrine of final causes receives some of its least exceptionable illustrations from vegetable physiology. Not that the argumentum a posteriori is more conclusive of design in plants than in animals, but that the sceptic's baseless cavil, which would attribute the design to the sensual being in the one case, the most bold effrontery never has, and never can adventure in the other. [We regret that our space prevents the insertion of the illustrations here given, they were peculiarly apposite, and as they formed, as it were, an episode, we shall probably find room to publish them in our next or the succeeding Number.] Every leaf of this book of nature is pregnant with important truths, but time forbids me to digress on the value of botany as a branch of general knowledge, and to descant on its particular advantages to the study, and in the practice of medicine, would be totally a work of supererogation, as it is but a few months since I discussed the point fully in my inaugural address, delivered in this room, wherein I showed what fatal accidents had frequently occurred from herbalists and others mistaking poisonous for esculent plants, and what disappointment and lamentable consequences have ensued from their substituting, either through ignorance or fraud, poisonous for harmless, inert for active herbs, in medicines. Even since I then addressed you, two further cases have come to my knowledge, in one of which a child was poisoned and in the other a herb-gatherer had laboured hard in collecting what was presumed to be conium, for the market, but which I found was an entirely different umbelliferous plant, viz. the charophyllum temulentum. Having shown, I think sufficiently, at least as fully as the present time will permit, although far less fully than inclination would persuade, the importance of botany both to the general and the medical philosopher, I must hasten to conclude; for the third objection, which attributes to it a tendency to contract the intellectual as well as the moral qualities, has been anticipated, by the proof of its being one of the most discursive and liberal branches of natural knowledge. But this last charge, which is indeed the most serious by far, the annalist has himself disproved, for he admits that "few great men have been distinguished as botanists merely," that some have no one can deny, and "those who have ever obtained a character in this way," we are told "were such as would have been as great in the path of celestial mechanics, had they turned their attention to that study." No doubt they would, but this is no evidence that botany "contracts the intellectual as well as the moral qualities;" to us it seems a proof that it has "a tendency of quite an opposite character," for most great botanists, such as Haller and Linnæus, it is confessed even in this attack, have been celebrated for "their multifarious talents and pursuits." Yes, gloriously indeed do the lives of Ray, Haller, and Linnæus, of Evelyn, Erew, Malpighi, Duhamel, Sloane, Bankes, and many, many others, both foreigners and natives, indeed of almost all who have preeminently excelled as botanical philosophers, refute the charge, and prove triumphantly that the study of plants has a tendency to contract neither the intellectual nor the moral qualities. On the contrary, so far is such a statement from the truth, that I scarcely know the science which can summon a greater number of enthusiastic votaries, who have shone with greater lustre, either as philosophers or as men. But the charge is so egregiously absurd, that I can scarcely excuse myself for having thus long dwelt upon it; and had it been preferred by the exact sciences" against botany, instead of by a pseudo-soph. the objection might have been 66 with greater justice retorted: for were the relative importance and expansive tendency of the various sciences to be submitted to a calculation, we should rest content that the tendency of the several studies should be judged of by their effects. You well remember the mathematician, who, when asked what he thought of Milton's Paradise Lost, which, after much persuasion, he condescended to peruse, astounded the querist by replying, that really he did not see what it proved. In fact (without meaning it as any reproach) such is the engrossing nature of some of the abstract sciences, that they do confine their students to themselves alone, while botany embraces so many collateral branches of physics, and is so intimately connected with every department of natural history and philosophy, that it is pre-eminently a liberal study, one that cannot fail to enlarge the mind; and hence arises the advantage with which botanists are reproached, viz. that they are seldom celebrated as botanists alone but are generally well versed in other departments of philosophy. Long may they continue so to be, seldom may they be celebrated as botanists alone, may they often be great in the knowledge of plants, and also as great in the path of celestial mechanics," or enthusiasts upon some "other subject equally useful." 66 But to conclude; before devoting himself to any pursuit, it is natural that man, who has but little time and much to learn, should desire satisfactory proofs of its importance, and after having wrought successfully in the acquisition of knowledge, it is natural that he should expect to reap some advantage from his labours. Hence all sciences have been tried by the ordeal of utility, and we complain not that botany should be submitted to the like tests, with its compeers; but it would be too much in silence to allow a study to be condemned as useless-to be arrogantly denounced as worse than useless, to the general and the medical philosopher, which both have weighed in the balance and when by both it has been found not wanting. To such effrontery it will be enough, indeed, it must be more than enough, to oppose the united sentences of judges well versed in all the bearings of the question, and not as this pursuer is, confessedly ignorant of the subject. We therefore shall conclude this apology for botany, by selecting two or three as samples from many similar testimonies of equal strength; and thus appeal from ignorance and prejudice, to knowledge and truth. "Botany (says Dr. Howison) is not the superficial science which individuals unacquainted with its minutia are apt to suppose?" "On all hands," affirms Rootsey, as the result of his investigations and experience, "on all hands it is agreed that botanical knowledge is of the highest importance to the professor of medicine:" and (doubtlessly referring to the light, which the anatomy, physiology, and chemistry, of plants, with the other branches of vegetable physics, have thrown upon the general sciences of anatomy, physiology, chemistry, pharmacy, toxicology, and so forth, as well as the important benefits which botanical philosophy has conferred on georgical pursuits, by elucidating the principles, and advancing the practice of husbandry, so that the farmer and the gardener can ensure with less labour, and produce on less land, not only more various crops, but also more abundant harvests than formerly ;) he continues-"It is thus shewn that botany in its widest sense embraces and comprehends much more than the arrangement of flowers, and that it indeed includes within its grasp, agriculture and many of our arts, manufactures, and trades;" and with a similar conviction of its importance, Scott, after enumerating with grateful encomia, many of its benefits, has thought himself justified in declaring that botany now ranks in point of sublimity amongst the most lofty of the sciences, and in beauty is second to none; giving an exquisite charm to various collateral pursuits, and forming at the present moment, one of the richest mines of unsullied gratification to its votaries, who belong to almost every rank and class of society." to Formerly the ignorant were content wonder, when they could not understand, omne ignotum pro magnifico was then their modest motto; but times are changed, and it is found to be easier to laugh than learn, more difficult to praise with judgment than rashly to condemn. Well, let them laugh; if they debar themselves the enjoyments of science, who shall deny them the blandishments of folly; if they refuse to worship in Apollo's fane, who shall forbid them reeling in the bands of Comus? [The learned and eloquent Professor was greeted, on the conclusion of his elegant and argumentative discourse, with the unanimous applause of his auditors.-REP.] INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO A COURSE ON FORENSIC MEDICINE, BY GEORGE BURROWS, M.D. IT is scarcely a year ago, that a gentleman of great respectability was found dead in his bed, at his own house in the Regent's Park. He had been in perfect health on the previous evening; and there was some suspicion that he had poisoned himself. His body was therefore examined after death, and five medical men made the following conjoint report to the coroner's jury: "After a minute and careful examination of the cavities of the body, viz. of the chest, the abdomen, and the head; the chief morbid appearances that were observed, were an effusion of blood into the right and left cavities of the chest, amounting to about six ounces on the one side, and seven ounces on the other; and a large accumulation of putrid blood in the stomach, mixed with its contents half digested food. The blood-vessels of the brain appeared more turgid than usual: these appearances, however, in the head, were not sufficient to account for death. Upon mature consideration, the cause of death of Thos. K. Esq. appears to us to have been the rupture of a blood vessel on the stomach. A. H. P. B. Surgeons. J. P. M. D. G. I. M. D. W. L. Dr. P. observed to the jury, that the deceased had died of the same disease as his majesty George the Fourth, only the bloodvessels were much larger in the late king. Such then is a specimen of the pathology of five medical practitioners in the largest metropolis of the civilized world. Such was their ignorance and incapacity to give information on an important question, treated of in all works on forensic medicine. Are we not then indebted to those who have now attempted to enforce a more competent knowledge of these subjects upon the rising generation of medical men? Pursuing the order of the printed syllabus, I shall next treat of suspended animationa state of the body of much speculative and practical interest. This condition of the human frame is induced by immersion in water, by exposure to impure atmospheres; by suffocation and some other causes. The question of drowning is interesting to the medical man, both in a physiological, and medico-legal point of view. It may be inquired of him in a court of justice, what is the immediate cause of death, when a person is drowned? What appearances are observed in the bodies of those who have died by drowning? Are there any signs which will determine, that a dead body found in the water was immersed during life or after death? What are the changes which take place in the human body left to decompose in water, and from those changes can it be ascertained how long a body has lain in the water? The importance of these questions is striking, and unless the medical witness has directed his attention to each of these points, there is little chance of his assisting the cause of justice, in any case of suspected murder. It is equally necessary, that the medical man should be aware of the external appearance, and of the state of the internal organs of the bodies of those who have died by hanging or strangulation. Is it not possible, that an individual may be murdered by a dose of prussic acid, and that the murderers my suspend the body after death by the neck, to give the appearance of an act of suicide? Suffocation is not an uncommon kind of sudden and accidental death; and the bodies of persons, who have died from such a cause, are sometimes found under very suspicious circumstances; and the medical witness is often called to clear up the difficulties of the case. It is not more than two years ago, that two inhuman wretches were detected in Edinburgh, of having resorted to this method of destroying their fellow creatures, to supply the anatomical theatres, with subjects for dissection. Similar practices may be, and I almost fear have been, resorted to in this metropolis; and I shall therefore revert to the evidence given on the trials of Burke and Hare, for the information of medical students, and for the detection of similar crimes in future. It is painful to reflect, that medical men are obliged to hold intercourse with such degraded beings as Burke,and Hare, to procure themselves the means of learning their profession; and it is most earnestly to be hoped, that the Legislature will, ere long, sanction some other method of providing our dissecting rooms with subjects. Questions of equal importance, and perhaps of greater difficulty, and delicacy will follow in the course; they are, the physical and physiological proofs of rape and infanticide. Physicians and legislators are much divided in their consideration of the crime of rape. Some deny the possibility of the perpetration of such a crime. The proofs of its commission are few and uncertain; and perhaps there is no accusation, in support of which, our courts of law have shewn more caution, and jealousy in admitting testimony than in such charges. A very great improvement in the English law, on this subject, has recently been made, which I shall take an opportunity of explaining. Of the proofs of the crime of infanticide, one of the most appalling and painfully interesting, I shall treat very fully. But more particularly so, because an important means of proving the commission of the crime has been of late years much disregarded. I advert to the hydrostatical tests of the lungs of the new born infant. An eminent and very humane physiologist of the last century, Dr. Wm. Hunter, was the first to throw discredit upon this means of determining whether an infant had respired or not. Judges and barristers seem all to have imbibed this physiologist's opinions on the subject; but I firmly believe, that if Dr. Hunter were now alive, and could be made acquainted with all the investigations on this point, which have been instituted in the great medical schools of Vienna and Paris, that he would be one of the first to acknowledge the utility of the hydrostatical tests in determining, whether an infant had been born alive or not? Other points connected with the proofs of the crime of infanticide, and to which very little attention has been paid by medical jurists, are the changes which take place in the portion of the navel string, left attached to the child, shortly after birth; and the different states of decomposition, in which an infant's body is found, at various periods after death, according as the body has been exposed to the air, buried under ground, immersed in water, or in a common cess-pool. In a trial for infanticide, it is not only necessary to decide by examination of the body, whether the infant was born alive, but it is sometimes of equal importance to determine how long the infant lived, how long it has been dead, and the cause of its death. A French physician, M. Billard, has made some very valuable researches upon this subject, at the great Foundling Hospital, at Paris, where 6,000 deserted infants are annually received, and where 1,500 die every year. In conjunction with a friend, I have recently verified most of this physician's experiments, in the same hospital, at Paris. The consideration of wounds and injuries to the human body, with reference to judicial investigations, will next follow; and in this part of the course, I shall detail some very recent experiments, made by Professor Christison of Edinburgh, and some also by myself at Paris, to point out the signs which distinguish wounds and injuries, made upon a body within a few hours after death, from those inflicted during life. Questions of this nature can only be elucidated by appeal to experiments. The vague and contradictory testimony given by medical witnesses upon this subject, clearly indicates, that they speak only from conjecture, and not from ascertained facts. To such an extent do these discrepancies exist, that a very able writer on this subject has asserted "that it may be firmly maintained, whether on many occasions the evidence of medical men has not embarrassed, where it should have enlightened, and misled, where it was called for to "direct the steps of justice."-Paris and Fonblanque, P. 9. V. 1. This remark (of Dr. Paris) is, I believe quite true, and I shall therefore devote an entire lecture to the subject of medical evidence. If a medical man has not reflected very often upon the duties of a witness, and the |