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the Ottomac nation is reduced to feed almost exclusively on a species of clay. Humboldt, by whom this fact is stated, asserts, that about a pound and a half of it, unmixed with crocodile fat, or any vegetable substance, is daily consumed by each individual. The only preparation consists in slightly frying, and afterwards moistening it.

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Somewhat analogous is observed by Golberry respecting the negroes of Los Idolos, islands at the mouth of the Senegal. They mix with their rice a mineral substance, which seems to serve as a substitute for butter.

"Brown says, that the crocodiles of South America swallow both small stones and pieces of wood, when the lakes which they commonly inhabit are dry, and they want food.

"Not far from Krasnoiarsk, on the river Jenissey, and in some mountains bordering on the Amour, is found a substance, called by the Russians, kamennoïé maslo, or rock butter. The elks and goats are singularly fond of it, and Patrin reports that it is employed by the hunters, as a bait wherewith to catch these animals.

"From all these facts may be drawn a somewhat curious general conclusion:-The earths, or stones, employed to distend the stomach, to allay hunger, or satisfy a depraved appetite, are almost invariably unctuous to the touch, fat, homogeneous, and contain much magnesia or alumine. Thus the author of the memoir has discovered that, at Martinique and Guadaloupe, the substance devoured by the negroes was an earth analogous to steatite, and formed by the decomposition of the porphyroid lava of the old volcanos of these islands.

"Vauquelin has analysed that of New Caledonia, and found it to consist of 0,37 of magnesia; 0,36 silex, and 0,17 oxide of iron. It is a green steatite, friable and tender.

"The earth of Los Idolos, is also a real steatite; but white, soft, and unctuous. Golberry eat of it without inconvenience or disgust.

"The rock butter forms stalactites in the cavities es of the mountains alluded to. It is a mixture of argil, sulphate of alumine, sulphate of iron, and a small quantity of petroleum.

"One of these gentlemen asserts, that once, when pressed by hunger, he ate about five ounces of a lamellated talc, of a silver green colour, and very flexible, abounding in the mountains of the Tyrol. His appetite was satisfied without the slightest inconve

nience.

"Most of the varieties of bolar and sigillated earths, which have been so long and frequently vaunted in the treatment of internal diseases, belong to the same class; but it is very probable, that their medical virtues depend upon the iron which enters into their composition."

In addition to the above, we would remark, that the substances consumed by chlorotic girls are usually the product of life. Chalk is generally supposed the effect of animal secretion, and pit-coal is often traced to a vegetable origin.

We

We some time ago hinted at an extraordinary optical phenomenon in Liverpool. We were then in hopes that a town, abounding with men of science, which can boast an Alanson, Curry, Roscoe, and a host of other living philosophers, which first instituted those docks the metropolis have at last imitated, and even led the way to a Lyceum, an Athenæum, and an Asylum for the Blind, would have at least discovered energy enough, either to detect imposture, or to ascertain a truly surprising fact; for it can now no longer be questioned, that Liverpool either contains a female who can see without eyes, or that she cannot be blinded. This is the only notice we shall at present take of this extraordinary subject.

Extract from the Report of the House Committee of the Smallpox Hospital."Your physician has reported, that the number of vaccinated subjects is greater, by 406, than during the first five corresponding months of the preceding year, and that the numbers inoculated are fewer; yet your committee have to lament, that smallpox has been more frequent, and its fatality greater) as appears by the reports of the weekly bills of mortality, as well as the numbers admitted into this house. Your committee have no reason, especially when they consider the report of the physician, to suppose, that this unhappy increase of small-pox has arisen from any distrust of vaccination, but rather from an inattention in the labouring class of society to their own healths and the lives of their children.

The following improved preparation of a very necessary medicine, we consider worth the notice of our readers. The suggestion is from Mr. Johnson, surgeon to the Lancaster Dispensary.

"The machine I use is similar to one made several years ago by Edmund Loyd and Co. 178, Strand; and does not differ essentially from any of those described in Count Rumford's 18th essay, and in the Repertory of Arts for April and May, 1813.

"Peruvian bark pounded and sifted through a wire sieve is placed in the strainer of this apparatus, and boiling water is poured upon it in successive portions. When about a quart of water has been thus passed through an ounce of cinchona, it forms a beautiful, clear solution of all that water can extract, and strongly exhibiting the sensible properties of cinchona.

"Dr. Duncan, jun. has long ago suggested that the precipitate which decoction of bark deposits on cooling may prove an useful and compendious medicine. This suggestion seems well founded, and deserves the trial. Those inclined to examine this matter may obtain a very abundant supply on cooling the strong infusion which first runs off.

"A little reflection on the chemical properties of cinchona, and a comparison of the infusion and decoction as usually prepared with the infusion just described, will convince your readers that the last preparation must afford an useful and efficient medicine. The saving effected in this way will be a small matter of consideration with medical practitioners as far as their interest only is concerned; but NO. 221.

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in dispensaries, infirmaries, and the public service, no item of expense is unimportant: and since on some occasions a scanty supply of cinchona has been felt as a national calamity, it becomes a duty to prevent a wasteful consumption of this valuable remedy. On this account, I mention, that in the Lancaster Public Dispensary this method is found to afford a better preparation than was formerly obtained from twice the quantity of cinchona.

"The stratum of bark should be of such a thickness that the water may neither pass through too slowly nor too rapidly. I have found a strainer of two inches, three inches, or four inches diameter, most suitable for half an ounce, one ounce, or two ounces, of cinchona."Annals of Phil.

*** . In our original department will be found a very interesting history of a living toad and newt incased in stone for a time beyond human calculation.-See p. 35.

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List of Patients admitted into all the Civil Hospitals of Paris, from the 1st of May, to the 31st of May, 1817, both inclusive. Uncharacterised fevers.

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Reigning Maladies in Paris, from the 1st to the 10th of May. Summer has come briskly upon us; the north wind has ceased, but the drought continues with now and then a heavy shower. The accidents mentioned in our last are multiplied in the country. Inflammatory disorders are prevalent, principally of the mucous kind, or affecting the mucous membrane of the breast and belly.

From the 11th to the 20th of May.-A mild and seasonable temperature has replaced the weather complained of in our last. Fertile rains have reanimated our plains, and given joy and hope to all. The Centigrade thermometer is generally from 15 to 18 and

20 degrees

20 degrees in the middle of the day, and in the morning it does not descend to below 8 to 10.

Disorders continue to be inflammatory, and sometimes with extreme intensity. Peripneumonics have been so violent as to carry off their victims in twelve or fifteen hours. It is remarkable, that all the present disorders are accompanied with a tendency to affections of the brain, and we ought, therefore, to be more careful in the mode of treatment. Bleeding in the lower members, on the foot, or leeches on the arms, ought to be insisted on; these sauguine evacuations are rather to be performed as derivatives than depletives, aud congestions in the brain have taken place from not attending to this. Able practitioners have added antispasmodics, as camphor, æther, valerian, &c. in cases of violent inflammation.

Women in child-bed have been frequently attacked with pleurisy, and even an inflammation of the meninges. Persons who are not well acquainted with this delicate point of science comprehend nothing of the progress of the disorder, but skilful physicians know that women in child-bed are much exposed to inflammation of the serous membranes, especially the peritoneum, which had been called puerperal fever before it was discovered by pathological anatomy that it was a local affection. They also know besides, that these disorders, always more or less modified by circumstances, do not always confine themselves to the peritoneum, but often extend to the pleura and the meninges, and even sometimes attack these latter membranes the first.

From the 21st to the 30th of May.-The temperature is mild, but unfortunately heavy rains fall every day, which have caused numerous gastric and bilious disorders. I have been singularly struck to find all the patients to whom I have been called, the same day, attacked with the same disorder.

*

Some of these are simply gastric obstructions, which have been removed by an emetic. In acute and nervous disorders, I have found these combined with old pulmonary catarrhs.

DE MONTEGRE, Editor of La Gazette de Santé. [The English reader will be surprised at such feeble practice as the above, in diseases so violent as to carry off the patients in fifteen hours.]

REPORT OF DISEASES.

THE weather has been extremely favourable to the health of invalids and the labouring class. Pulmonary complaints, in their chronic form, have almost disappeared; and the febris pauperum which threatened such ravages has been suddenly arrested. The employment furnished by the hay-harvest, brick-making, and all the labour attending building, repairing, and even the destruction of houses, has diffused a degree of activity which, with the almost constant appearance of an unclouded sun, restores to Augusta a prospect of her ancient industry, with every improvement of comfort and splendour. The magnificent structure of a bridge, supe

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rior to any thing England could boast, and by its level structure affording all the charms of novelty, and displaying at a single glance all its beauties, without concealing the distant hills, at the most favourable season for a landscape view, is the first prominent improvement which presents itself; and, though the public at large may not be aware how much such spectacles contribute to the general health, yet every medical man in full practice is sensible of the influence they produce on certain classes of patients, and certain descriptions of disease.. This is evinced on a still larger scale, and with a force which defies all scepticism, in the health of an army or fleet, who, under the most favourable circumstances, are rarely kept in health without continual exercise of body and mind directed to some successful enterprize.

The ground to be cleared for the Post Office is supposed to be covered by 200 houses, almost all of them full of lodgers, and probably containing a population of more than 3,000 human beings. In the same neighbourhood, the governors of Christ's Hospital have dispossessed nearly 500 more. All these must seek an abode in more healthy spots; which is some relief to a mind reflecting on the temporary inconveniences to which many of the poorer inmates must be exposed. Add to this, fresh activity must be infused among the most abject by the erection of 700 houses in Spa-fields. To this spot, many, hitherto confined in the lower rooms of houses situated in dark alleys, will now repair, and, it is hoped, enjoy the comforts of a garden in addition to an airy frontage.

We have been led to these reflexions, not only by the influence such events have on the public health and the character of disease, but by the fallacious opinion some are apt to form of our increased number of inhabitants. That the population of London, generally so called, is greatly increased, cannot be questioned. But, whilst the single parish of Mary-le-bone, once an inconsiderable village, as its church proves, now possesses a population exceeding in number all Bristol and Clifton, with its environs; the interior part of the city of London is become an immense warehouse or bazaar, with its counting-houses. The apprehension, therefore, of Dr. Price, that England, like a ricketty child, had a head too large for its body, is unfounded. To pursue the allusion-its head is brought into shape, its shoulders spread, and, what is most to the purpose, its chest is expanded and supplied with purer air. We are doubtful whether London is not more free from acute diseases than most parts of the country.

We have, in vain, endeavoured to acquire further information concerning the fever in the Duke of Newcastle's family, and said to be sporadic in other parts of the country, particularly along the eastern coast. We have, however, reason to hope the accounts have been exaggerated, and, still more, that the fevers have not generally proved fatal. In London, the complaints are still inflaminatory; but this is less universal among the higher classes, probably from their greater attention to their health, which induces them to seek relief before inflammation assumes a formidable aspect. How

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