the disease denoted by the theme or radical. He adverts to some striking anomalies which have prevailed in the use of the particles; and then prescribes a few general regulations. As these, together with the tabular illustration which follows them, exhibit the primitive development of their author's ideas on a subject of interest both to the medical student and to the general reader, I shall insert them here.

"To reduce the anomalies, thus pointed out, to some degree of regularity, to make them intelligent to the student, and practically useful to the adept, I beg leave to submit the following regulations:

"1. Let the particle a (a) express alone the idea of total privation; as in amentia, agalactia, amenorrhœa. "2. Let dys (vc) express alone the idea of deficiency, as its origin duvw or dvi most naturally imports, and as we find it employed to express in dys-pnæa, dyscinesia, and dys-phagia.

"3. As an opposite to dys, let en (ev) be employed as an augmentive particle, as we have it in en-harmonic, en-telechia, and en-ergetic. En is not often, indeed, a medical compound, nor do I recollect its being employed in more than two instances; encephalon, in which it has the sense of interior (a word, indeed, that has been long falling into disuse,) and enuresis, in which it imports excess, and is consequently used as now recommended. Thus restricted, ev and dus will have the force of Vερ and кarw, but will be far more manageable in the formation of compounds.

"4. Let agra (aypa) be restrained to express the idea of simple morbid affection in an organ, synonymously with the Latin passio, or the ~ (berh) of the

Arabians.

"5. Let itis (Iris) express alone the idea of inflammatory action, as in cephalitis, gastritis, nephritis.

"6. Let algia (aλyıa) express alone the idea of pain or ache, to the banishment of such useless synonyms as odyne and copos, or copus.

"7. Let rhagia (from pnoow, rumpo) be confined to express a preternatural flux of blood.

"8. Let rhoa (from pew, fluo) express a præternatural flux of any other kind.

"By adopting these few regulations, which, instead of innovating, only aim at reforming, our technology, if I mistake not, would be in many respects equally improved in simplicity, in elegance, and in precision; the student would easily commit it to memory, and the practitioner have a real meaning in the terms he makes use of. To prove the truth of these assertions, the subjoined table will be sufficient, which may be easily extended to any length by the use of other particles or prepositions, or the introduction of other themes or radical terms of the medical vocabulary; a vocabulary at present equally confused and redundant, but which, when thus simplified, and cleared of the numerous synonyms and equivalents that overload it, might be reduced to at least a third part of its present length, and be rendered as much more conspicuous as it would be more concise. The adoption, moreover, of some such regulations as those now proposed, could not be more beneficial to our nomenclature than to our systems of nosology-a branch of medical literature, which, whether contemplated under the best synoptic or the best methodic arrangements of the day, stands in need of almost as much correction as our language.

Apepsia. Vog. Cynorexia. Al. Malaccia. Alior.