to make on the former, the principal improvements being on the means of preventing hæmorrhage, either from accident, disease, or operations. We have taken much pains to give this subject a new turn, and to direct the inquiries of the philosophic practitioner to the powers of arteries, and of the blood, and to the stimuli under which they assume new actions. Instead of disputing about the vitality of the blood, or the apparent consciousness of vessels, we have only requested that the changes in the form and action of each may be duly attended to. Whenever this has been done, however imperfectly, we constantly find every candid inquirer adopting a similar language, which, if not admitting, at least implies life and consciousness. Let us ask too, is there any thing more extraordinary in all this than in the new character assumed about this season of the year by whole races among the inferior animals? Are not both sexes irresistibly directed to the propagation of the species? In the finny and feathered tribes, is not the formation of certain parts changed preparatory to such a process? Does not the female bird learn to forego the use of her wings, and almost to exist without food? Do not both sexes learn to construct a nest, and are they not endowed with a courage which seems at variance with their character at every other period of their existence?-When we constantly witness such provision, why should we feel surprised if a fresh wound is united without the agglutinant traumatics, of which now only the names remain; or, if that process fails, that it should suppurate without digestives, granulate without incarnatives, and cicatrize without eccoprotics?-And, if such is the case, what is there more extraordinary in the contraction of vessels, or the coagulation of the blood, when those processes are necessary for the imme diate preservation of the animal.

Surgery has, however, been further improved by the treat ment of diseases in their most complicated forms. The milder mode of uniting sinuses does much honour to the restorer and improver of this practice, and the boldness with which the knife has been introduced into the complicated articulations of the tarsus and metatarsus, as well as the larger joints, shows a progressive improvement in the art

to

to which it is impossible to fix any limits. To these we might add the improvements in the diagnostic and consequent treatment of various complaints in the urinary and genital organs, the effect of anatomical investigation, the description of which is assisted by the graver or etching tool.

In midwifery, which must ever be considered a part of surgery, we trust our unembarrassed review of Dr. Stewart, may be a means of arresting the mischief with which, in the opinion of the most experienced practitioners, his book was fraught. If so, a crude performance of that kind may not be without its utility. It may excite inquiries, or at least show that, however unnecessary or improper large doses of opium with stimulating dietetics may be, they are not always fatal, even when their danger is increased by unnecessary manual assistance.-Our next number will contain a drawing of an important improvement in the instrumental part of midwifery, sanctioned by the ablest practitioners of the age.

The improvements in medicine have been much more considerable, and, in our opinion, much more important than in surgery. We hope we may now congratulate our countrymen, and perhaps the world at large, on having in great measure risen above that unfortunate artificial arrange. ment of fevers which has so long proved destructive in priyate life, and of which, in the army and navy, we may truly

say,

Πολλας διφθιμος ψυχας αϊδι προϊάψει

Heww.

Dr. R. Jackson first led the way to this improved practice. His language, it may be objected, was too much polished, and, it must be confessed, some of his theories were such as could not be reduced to proof; yet this ought not to have superseded a due attention to his facts, which were incontrovertible. Happily they have led to a rational and successful practice. We have sometimes expressed our doubts, whether this practice may not be continued when in the British Island, at least a change in the constitution of the atmosphere, may produce a change in the character of dis ease. There is, however, little danger of this in tropical

climates, and if Dr. J. relieved medicine from the influence of a nomenclature which has done so much to impede its progressive improvement, thousands now alive, and of the succeeding generation, ought to bless his memory. Dr. Bancroft's ponderous volume has succeeded much better with the public.

It is not often that much time elapses without something being said systematically on fever. Dr. Armstrong has published an able and well-written volume on this subject, and, although he still retains the former names and definitions, and divisions, of febrile affections, he has had sufficient courage to depart from the beaten track in pursuing his curative indications,-how far we agree or differ from this writer will be seen by turning to our analytical review of his publication. We regret that so much pressing matter has prevented our notice of Dr. Mills, and several other writers, on the same subject.

Though Dr. Bancroft's notions of contagion are more confused than any we have met with, he is still decided in the non-contagious property of yellow fever. The subject of contagion is, indeed, so necessarily connected with fever, that most of the writers on the former have been drawn into a consideration of the latter. Among these we have particularly noticed Dr. Dickinson, and another writer in the Edinburgh Journal. These, it is true, only speak incident. ally of contagion, but both are remarkably clear in every important particular, whether diagnostic or practical.

Some writers have lately directed their sole attention to contagion. We have a pledge of long standing, which we are often called upon to redeem, and for which we are collecting materials from every quarter. The American writers have large opportunities of investigating this question in a new country where disease assumes those formidable features which the extremes of climate, suddenly encreased popu lation, an extensive coast, and new land frequently turned up, afford in all their varieties. Yet we are forced to acknowledge, that the science has not hitherto improved in that quarter since the death of the much-lamented Rush.

NO. 221.

D

We

We have before had occasion to remark the unsatisfactory manner in which Dr. Hossack has treated the subject, and his strange assumption of a certain tertium quid from an author in whose writings we have never been able to discover any thing which could lead to the adoption of such terms.

We have already hinted how much the practice in fevers has suffered by a premature nosology. Must we still have to complain, with Mr. Bakewell and Sir Humphrey Davy, that "the avenues to knowledge are barricadoed by a fortification of hard words and frivolous distinctions ?” Before we do this, we must take a closer view of Mr. John Mason Good's Physiological System of Nosology, which is, unquestionably, the most learned and laborious of any of the medical publications that have lately issued from the press. The whole "form and substance" of the book is, indeed, more like the production of a German literatus than of an English general practitioner. The author, after stating his objections to former nosological systems, and pointing out the extent of coincidence between himself and another, who, by his radius, undertook to describe all medicine and its writers, proposes to divide the whole of morbid phenomena into the classes Coeliaca, Pneumatica, Hæmatica, Neurotica, Genetica, Eccritica, and Tychica; each class being divided and subdivided into numerous orders, genera, and species. It cannot be denied, that Mr. Good has evinced a great deal of ingenuity, as well as industry, in endeavouring to give connexion, shape, and beauty, to such materials. Nosology, we have repeatedly said, is labour lost, when it goes upon the presumption of our capacity to define diseases as the botanist delineates the parts and peculiarities of a plant. Mr. Good's plan, however, of naming affections according to the part or organs affected, is less objectionable than the nomenclature of many of his predecessors, insomuch as the announcement of the diseased state involves less of hypothesis with regard to diseased production. The notes and occasional observations of Mr. Good are often exceedingly instructive; and, although we do not predict

that the new arrangement proposed will be pursued by teachers of medicine, we do believe that the volume in question will find its way generally into the libraries of medical

amateurs.

We have lately noticed two other writers on nosology. One confines his remarks to cutaneous diseases, which, being the objects of our external senses, seem to offer the fairest subjects for artificial arrangement. Yet, when we consider how much even these diseases are modified by season, constitution, and even the various stages through which they pass, and at the same time reflect on the difficulties attending such arrangement, when confined to original conforma tions in the various and less complicated operations of nature, we must surely confess, that our progress in the diagnostic of disease is much too imperfect to attempt the substitution of character for description.

Willan has the merit of first attempting to assist arrangement by elaborate descriptions and by coloured engravings; but his descriptions are rendered complicated by the unnecessary and indiscriminate production of authorities, and by his attempts to reconcile them, instead of boldly deciding for himself, or acknowledging his incapacity so to do. Dr. Bateman completely gave up the point, when he told us, in his first edition

"Most of the writers, who have composed express treatises on cutaneous diseases, in modern times, have implicitly adopted the nomenclature of the ancients, without attempting to render it more definite, or to improve upon the diagnosis which they had pointed out. The essays of Mercurialis, Hafenreffer, Bonacursius, and Turner, were written after this manner; and even Lorry, in his able and elegant work, does not step far out of the ancient path. About the year 1780, however, an elaborate classification of the diseases of the skin was published by Prof. Plenck, of the University of Buda; and, subsequently to the commencement of Dr. Willan's publication, a sort of arrangement has been proposed, in the splendid and pompous performance of M. Alibert, which however is altogether destitute of method, except in the distinctions of the species under each genus.