the complaints were peripneumonies, catarrhs, and catarrho. bilious complaints. But there are the ufual difeafes of a moist fpring. The prefervatives and, the remedies will be obvious from this detail; but the feafon is now past, and it would be ufeleis to proceed fart' er on a foundation fo uncertain.

Another enemy to the health of mankind, not lefs fatal than violent cold, are the different miafmata from the earth: these we now begin to underland more accurately than usual; but it is our prefent bufinefs to point out a peculiar one which fome time fince occurred in the Laonnois and the Soiffonnois, arifing from the decomposition of pyrious turf. This turf, formed originally, as M. le Maitre fuppofes, by vegetables ftagnating in martial waters, and afterwards acquiring from the fea the black oily matter, the remains of animals, and the calcareous earth of their fhells, fullers a fpontaneous decompolition and inflammation. The fuffocating fulphurcous empyreumatic va pour fpreads far around, and conveys to the neighbourhood the moft violent and fatal putrid epidemics. Our author mentions an experiment, which we have formerly adverted to: if a frog is put into a veffel of inflammable air, its blood becomes black, its veins fwell, and it is foon diffolved into an ichorous fluid. Horfes employed very near the fource of this vapour become blind; the workmen lofe their eye-brows, and are fubject to cutaneous eruptions and erofions; the vegetables lofe their colour, and languifh or dic. Thefe effects are chiefly expli cable from the action of the air on the nerves, though the vitriolic acid has undoubtedly fome fhare by its corrofive power. Perhaps we may not have a more convenient place to remark that M, Reufs, in a late publication at Leipfic, has contended very violently against the existence of a nervous fluid, and particu larly urges, that the remedies for nervous diseases are fuch as cannot influence any given ftate of such a fluid.

On the fubject of fpecific infections we have not much to offer: thofe which have lately occurred to us among the new publications, relate to the fmall-pox and venereal difeafe. On the former fubject, we may mention two works, whofe authors differ greatly in opinion. M. Vogelfang is a great friend to inoculation, and proves that it has fucceeded happily, when combined with many difeafes, fuppofed hitherto unconquerable; fuch as me.fles, fevers, fyphilis, worms, fcurvy, and fcrophula. As the natural difeafe has relieved these complaints, our author trufts to find the fame advantages in the inoculated ftate. M. Orlandi, on the other hand, is a violent enemy to inoculation: he repeats the old arguments, fo often urged and fo ably answered, to which he adds fome facts, which we think doubtful, and fome advice, that we fufpect is not judicious. He thinks one in two hundred only dies in the natural fmall-pox, and that two or three in every hundred die of those who are inoculated. Strange to tell! he quotes Percival and De Hacn for this laft affertion. He obferves, that if perfons affect

ed

ed with the small-pox are bled they will be in danger; and, if pregnant women are bled, the difeafe in the children will be more confluent and fatal. At laft, to fill up the measure of his errors, he recommends the old exploded custom of preffing all the blood from the umbilical cord, as a prefervative from the disease in its most dangerous state.

On the fubject of the other specific infection, the works are more numerous, and, we think, of more importance. M. de Cigliano published, laft year, at Turin, his general and critical History of the Origin, Effence, and fpecific Quality of the Venereal Infection.' In this effay he endeavours to fhow, we need fcarcely fay without fucceis, that the difcafe was known to the ancients, and defcribed by them in different forms, and under different names.

Dr. Girtanner's book, which, we find in our lift, was shortly analysed in the Medical Commentaries, and we mentioned it in our review of the fourteenth volume of that work, in our last Number: it is therefore only neceffary to add one or two remarks, which have occurred to us on looking over M. Girtanner's volumes once more. The author endeavours to render his work, what Aftruc's was at the time of its publication, a complete digeft, not only of the history, but of the prefent flate of our knowledge and practice on this fubject. We have formerly had occafion to fay that Henfler did not feem to have proved the existence of the complaint previous to 1493; and our author, who thinks with us, fixes the fourth of March 1493 as the period of the first importation of this fatal disease. Dr. Girtanner is of opinion, that there is no general venereal complaint but what has been preceded by local ones; and that the appearance of the general difeafe is more chronic, because the virulence of the poifon has been in fome degree abated by its mixture with the mafs of fluids. The difcharge in gonorrhoea is, he thinks, phlegmatic, and fhould be styled leucorrhoea: for injections he prefers a dilute folution of the cauttic alkali, or lime-water with opium, or preparations of lead, without any general, or at leaft any mercurial remedy. For obftinate obftructions in difcharging urine, he recommends bathing the feet in cold water; and buboes he leaves to break naturally, if the methods proposed do not difcufs them. The hectic is not, in his opinion, the effect of the poifon, bt of the continued irritation: the difeafe, he fuppofes, will generally fhow itfelf within feven or eight weeks after its being received. From among the vegetable remedies, he particularly recommends to the attention of practitioners not only the aftragalus efcapus, but the dulcamara and mezereon. Of the aftragalus efcapus he has given a plate; it acts, he tells us, on the urinary organs, and the glands of the skin. Thefe are the principal circumstances we would wish to add to the analyfis given in the Medical Commentaries.

The author to whom we are indebted for the History of the Venereal Difeafe, M. Perenotti de Ciciliano, has alfo publifhli 2

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ed a treatise on the Cure of the Disease; but it chiefly relates to the conduct of a mercurial courfe, and the management of mercurial frictions. Opium is still ufed in thefe complaints with different fuccefs, in the hands of different practitioners. M. Giuseppi Pasta, author of Philofophical Toleration in Difeafes, and Enquiries into Sanguine Polypi,' has published a fhort account of his experiments on this fubject at Bergamo. He has given 800 grains of opium in 50 days, about 16 grains each day, at different dofes. He conftantly observed the venereal pains leffened; and, where a cure did not follow, the remedy appeared not to be dangerous. In eight cafes it feemed to be fuccefsful. We perceive, in the Journal de Medecine, that M. Souville has given opium with a defign of bringing on venereal eruptions, where he fuppofed that they had dif appeared before the cure was completed. He thinks it affifts the operation of mercury, fometimes completes the cure which mercury had left unfinished, and contributes to remove the ulcerations. He gives 40 grains within 24 hours, and 4 ounces 3 drachms in 3 months. In our own trials it has seemed to be a palliative rather than a cure, and to have quieted fymptoms, instead of eradicating the virus. In one instance, where the smallest quantity of mercury, even rubbed in the form of ointment, on the kin, produced the most violent colics, we carried it fo far as prudence would allow; but we think it did not cure: a temporary ceffation of the more troublefome fymptoms was the only effect.

If a phrenitis or a paraphrenitis can be ever contagious, they muft arife from fpecific contagion; as during the prevalence of an influenza, peripneumony may be confidered in this light. We perceive, however, in a foreign Journal, an account of thefe difeafes, which prevailed at Munster in 1788, and were faid to be truly contagious. We can, however, only obferve that the epidemic was fevere, and particularly violent when it attacked the young or the middle aged, who were the chief victims. M. Dietrich's Obfervations on the more rare Cafes of Calculi we cannot particularly defcribe. The most im portant inftance was of an inteftinal calculus, which resembled an obtufe cone, whofe diameters were 1 and 13 of an inch. It appeared to be compofed of a waxy and a mucilaginous fub ftance; but there were, on one fide, marks of crystallization, and that fide had not the foapy feeling of the other. Its specific gravity was 0.813.

M. Stoll, the fucceffor of Van Swieten, feems to think even the rickets may be epidemic; but this must be understood with, fome latitude, either as depending on warm damp weather, the prevalence of other debilitating epidemics, or the neighbour. hood of foggy marshes. His Lectures on Chronic Diseases, published fince his death by M. Eyerel, contain many valuable obfervations, but, in general, we do not rest on him as the ableft and most judicious practitioner of the Vienna fchool. His ob5 fervations

fervations are often crude and undigested; his practice trivial or fanciful. In this work, if we indulged the faftidiousness of criticifm, we could easily find in lances of either fault; but we fhall prefer felecting a few obfervations of fome importance. The premature genius of ricketty children, he remarks, is chiefly enfpicuous when the head is not affected; when these bones fuffer, the child is drowsy and ftupid. Mercury may, he fuppofes, be of fervice; but this arifes from the old infufficient theory of gluten. In fcrophula, he recommends the extract of the lactuca virofa; and in dropfy this remedy, he fays, is ufeful from its deobftruent rather than its diuretic powers. Squills are hurtful in dropfy when there is fever; and he obferves, that inflammatory droplies fometimes occur, particularly in robuft young women, when the catamenia have been fuppreffed from cold. Among the fymptoms of colica pictonum, he mentions a fwelling of the tongue; and recommends misleto, when debility is joined with acrimony; bark, when combined with irritability. Henbane he thinks a medicine of the fame kind as opium, and preferable to it as a gentle laxative; but he ought to have told us, that this laft property is only obferved when given in very large doles. Flowers of zinc is, in his opinion, chiefly an abforbent and a flight tonic. In valerian a ftimulant power, he tells us, is combined with the antifpalmodic.

M. Stoll's Treatife on Pharmaceutical Remedies,' published at Augsburg, with notes by M. Effich, is chiefly a manual, collected from authors, probably for his own private use, at an early period of his practice.

M. Ackerman has published at Noremberg, a new edition. of Sextus Placitus' work, De Medicamentis ex Animalibus;' and one of Lucius Apuleius, De Medicamintibus Herbarum,' under the title of Parabilium Medicamentorum Scriptores antiqui. But these are authors of the middle age, whofe language is barbarous, and whofe practice is abfurd, credulous, and fuperftitious. Our editor gives a long account of the au thors, and the editions ufed; but he feems to have mifapplied much time, great care, and fome erudition.

A more important medical work is one publifhed at Pavia, by profeffor Carminati. He was ordered, more than ten years fince, to examine, by experiment, the powers of many boasted remedies, whofe real effects were doubtful, and every opportunity was allowed for his trials, which were to be conducted with equal caution and care. The refult of fome experiments is publifhed; and, as it is entitled the first volume, others probably will follow. The Eflays are fix; and the first is on the medicinal properties of an acid foap, and the different methods of preparing it: the fecond, on the ufe of flowers of zinc, and the magiftery of bifmuth, which he found of very little fervice: third, the effects of fugar and fea-falt on animals: the fourth, lizards and vipers, tried without fuccefs in cancers,

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with little utility in the itch and fyphilis, and with great fuc cefs in fchrophula: fifth, on the virtue of the valeriana Celtica, compared with the valeriana officinalis, and found greatly. inferior: the fixth, on the effects of opium in fyphilis, and the manner of ufing it: the best corrector of opium he thinks to be coffee.

The farce of animal magnetifin is ftill playing on the continent as well as in England. M. Jofephi, in his treatife on this fubject, published in German, at Brunfwick, triumphs in the defection of M. Satillieu, an impoftor in this line, while M. Gmelin, in his New Inquiries concerning Animal Magnetism, more coolly defends the art; and, though he gives up Satillicu as an impoftor, he confiders fome other profeffors as true adepts. Profeffor Meuniers, at Gottingen, is one of the believers of this new doctrine, as appears from his late work on the subject.

M. Cuffon has recommended the bark of the India chefnuttree in intermittents, and thinks its effects fimilar to thofe of the Peruvian bark. Twelve cafes are added, in which it was fuccefsful. Ipecacuanha has, we find, been recommended lately in the colic by a Dutch phyfician; the dofe was two grains given every hour, and it vomited as well as purged; but this, we think, can fcarcely be ftyled a novelty.

If M. Hahneman's account of the antifeptic power of nitrated filver be well founded, it must be a most valuable remedy. Diffolved in water, in the proportion of 1500 to 1, it preferves meat, though the meat dipped in it be hung up wet; even in a lefs proportion (1.100.000), the water will be preserved in its natural state, though warmed, and even expofed to the fun. Our author, from thefe trials, recommends it in fcurvy, fince he has found that it may be taken as a common drink (in what proportion?) without danger.' It removes the fœtid fmell and difagreeable appearance of old fores, and is an excellent gargle in ulcerated throats, and in aphthæ, from a mifconducted mercurial courfe. The filver is depofited by adding a little muriatic acid, and expoling the water to the fun.

Among the various ufes of emetic tartar, it has not yet been employed in nervous diseases: in the last volume of Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres at Thoulouse, we find it given with fuccefs in a periodical fleep. The dofe was large, and its good effects were undoubtedly owing to the vomiting, and the agitation infeparable from that operation.

Our readers may probably remember Dr. Stark's account of the effects of fugar, and the obfervations on this fubject, which we quoted from Dr. Cullen's volumes on the Materia Medica. A little difpute has arifen in confequence of Dr. Stark's experiments in France, which, as it has introduced fome facts of importance, we fall fhortly mention. On the review of Dr. Stark's pofthumous works, in the Gazette de Santé, M. Bertin, a physician at Rofoi, in Brie, wrote to the editors a fhort letter, in which he obferves, that this author's fentiments are

agreeable