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by the latter, while not less than are communications from foreign hands through the medium of members.

"An Introduction to Medical Literature, including a system of practical Nosology-together with detached essays-by Thomas Young, M.D. F R. and L.S &c." Our general remarks upon a pretty close attention to this volume, are that the learned author writes rather from his reading and reasoning than from his practice. Yet his reading has been comprehensive, and his reasoning is for the most part sound, acute, and well worthy of attention: we have been much pleased with the work, and warmly recommend it to general perusal. It contains a preliminary essay on the study of physic; aphorisms relating to classification; introduction to medical literature; chemical tables; sketch of animal chemistry; remarks on the measurement of minute particles; essay on the medical effects of climates. There is certainly more science, but we think less simplicity in the nosology here proposed than in Dr. Cullen's, if we except his class of locales, which Cullen has employed as a sort of rubbish-drawer, to receive whatever would not enter into his first three classes. We like moreover the uniformity of employing Greek terms as the desiguations of the primary divisions. But Dr. Young has made them unnecessarily formidable in length by his frequent use of the Greek mapa (para) as a prefix, and might, in our opinion, in a few instances, have been more definite in his radicals. Пapa is not always used by the Greek writers in the same sense; sometimes importing vicinity, as the parotid glands, or

those near the organ of the ear;" Paronychia, "an abscess near the

finger-nail:" at other times morbid affection, as paracensis, defective hearing;' paraglossa, enlargement of the tongue :' our author, however, shows a disposition to confine it to the latter sense, and to employ it in this sense constantly: and hence he has exchanged Cullen's term Neuroses, for Paraneurismi; his Pyrexia, for Parhamasiæ; his Cachexia, for Pareccrises; most of his Locales, for Paramorphia. For ourselves, we see no reason for retaining the preposition in any of these; for, allowing its confinement to the sense of morbid action, it is not necessary to be perpetually employing it, or even to employ it at all as a classific prefix in a work expressly devoted to nosology, or the doctrine of diseases; for the radicals of themselves must as essentially import diseased action, as though united to a preposition directly significative of it; and hence we cannot but prefer Dr. Cullen's simple Neuroses to Dr. Young's Paraneurismi. And in truth were the para necessary for the class, it must be equally necessary for the order, the genus, the species, the variety; and hence every nosological term throughout the entire arrangement should commence with it. We have upon the whole been much pleased with Dr. Young's table of medical books for the use of the student, and his ingenious method of appreciating their relative value by a variation in the typographical characters in which they are printed; the more important being given in capitals; the library books distinguished by an asterisk; and those of less or only local value by italics. We have also glanced with much approbation at his detached essays; particularly that "on the Medical Effects of Climates; and, in closing, cannot 22

once more avoid recommending the volume to all the practitioners of the healing art, as admirably entitled to an attentive perusal.

"A Treatise on Febrile Diseases; including the various species of fever, and all diseases attended with fever. By A. P. Wilson Phillip, M. D." &c. 2 vols. 8vo. This work has sufficient merit to have called for a new edition, in which the author has made a few useful alterations. The basis of his arrangement is derived from Cullen; though he admits of a few variations; his general division is into idiopathic and symptomatic fevers. The descriptions are clear, and the treatment rather practical than theoretical or novel.

"Cases of Hydrophobia; including Dr. Schoolbred's and Mr. Tymon's successful Cases; with some Observations on the nature and seat of the Disease. By J. O'Donnel, M.D. 8vo. 2s." The Indian cases and practice are now known to every one: they are well worthy of being borne in mind, and of being tried in our northern latitudes: but the question is by no means settled; and the pamphlet before us, though full of these cases, and enlarged by the introduction of two others that fell under the care of the writer, and proved fatal, contains no new fact, or even opinion of importance.

for his "Medical Surgery:" to which the volume before us is offered as an accompaniment. The disease of ulcer is here rendered unnecessarily complex by a too great variety of divisions and subdivisions, but it lays a basis for many occasional remarks of much practical value.

"A Treatise on the Diseases and organic Lesions of the Heart and Great Vessels: by J. N. Corvisart, M. D. &c. Translated from the French, by C. H. Hebb." Svo. Ios. 6d. This volume deve'opes a fearful list of local maladies, some of which, however, we hope are rather imaginary or speculative, than real or practical. The whole range of diseases belonging to the human system are comprised in Cullen': method under four classes: those of the heart alone are here made to occupy five; of which the following is the arrangement. I. Class. Diseases of the membraneous coverings of the heart. II. Those of its muscular substance. III. Those of its tendinous and fibrous parts. IV. Those "which affect at the same time several tissues of the heart." V. Aneurisms of the aorta. Some of the remarks are solid and judiciouts; but there is throughout the whole too much scholastic ramification and partition.

object

bject to this linsey-woolsey language, which is neither wholly Greek, Latin, nor English, but composed partly of the one and partly of the other. There is also an occasional inaccuracy of style, which we still less expected in a book of science designed for the use of students. Thus the author, in his description of the brain, tells us first of all that belonging to it "there are certain peculiarities which distinguish the brain of all other animals from that of man: these consist chiefly in its being much smaller in proportion to the body, and also to the cerebellum and spinal marrow, but particularly to the nerves arising from it." And having laid down these distinctions as applicable to all mammals compared with man, he immediately proceeds to tell us "that there are various animals to which several of them will not apply; that some of the ape and mouse kind (kind) equal man in the proportion of the size of the brain, and certain birds surpass him." Mr. Fyfe very properly recommends the student to consult the works from which he has derived the information contained in the present sketch; these are now well and widely known through our own country, both in their original tongues, and from the able translations which have been given of them. To these Mr. Fyfe has added observations from Munro, and a few other zootomists; but we do not find much which is not contained in Cuvier and Blumenbach.

f

non-entity. He resolves the phanomena into secondary impressions, produced from some accidental cause, after the external object, and the primary impression itself bave withdrawn; he consequently denominates apparitions spectral impressions. We can neither admit the term or the hypothesis. Im pressions in every instance, and upon every system of metaphysics, so far as we are acquainted with the science, are objective or subjective, using this latter word in the sense in which it has of late been generally, and with much convenience, employed on the continent; or in the language of Mr. Locke, they are primary ideas of sensation o of reflection; but spectral impressions, as here explained, are no primary ideas at all; they are neither directly objective nor directly subjective; they are mere accidents dependant upon a morbid action of the visual organ or function. We as much object to the theory: because it by no means applies to eleven cases out of twelve, even admitting it to apply to the twelfth. It is possible that various instances have been mere phantasms or deceptions produced, as all of thern are here supposed to be produced, by a diseased action of the optic sense; but this is to suppose that the apparition is only cognizable by this sense, and by this sense as belonging to an individual: and consequently must be relinquished, whenever the ears, touch, or other senses have offered a concurrent testimony, or the spectre has been equally surveyed by different persons at the same time: for it is somewhat too much to contend gratuitously that all the senses of a single individual, and still more so that all those of a collective body of individuals, should have been equally

the

the subjects of disease and delusion, Either therefore all the histories of these extraordinary phoenomena must be flatly denied, upon adequate and counter-evidence, or a different and more general explanation must be given of them; unless we admit not only the possible, but the actual, existence of them on particular occasions.

"An Examination of the Imposture of Ann Moore, called the fasting Woman of Tutbury; illustrated by remarks on other cases of real and pretended abstinence. By Alexander Henderson, M. D."—" A full Exposure of Ann Moore, the pretended fasting Woman of Tutbury." We unite these in their present order, because they relate to the same subject, and exemplity cach other. It is now well known to almost every one that the person here referred to, pretended a few years since, to have a power of living without taking any sustenance whatever, whether solid or liquid; that about seven years ago she felt or expressed a great difficulty of deglutition, in consequence of which she first diminished her usual quantity of solid food, then of liquid food, and afterwards asserted that she took no food of any kind, and pretended to continue in this total privation of nutriment for a period of two years, her strength a little, though only a little decaying, while the faculties of her mind continued as strong as ever. To determine whether there was any imposition in the case, several gentlemen formed themselves into a party in September, 1808, for the purpose of minute ly watching her by night and by day for a fortnight. They continued this system of vigilance for sixteen days; and with all their attention could not, or at least did

not, perceive any thing conveyed to her, whilst, neverthele-s, her usual vigour of body and mind exhibited no reduction. The fasting woman of Tutbury was hence regarded as a new wonder of the world; nobody travelled through Staffordshire or near it without paying his respects to her, and seldom without leaving some pecumiary mark of attention. Anong other persons she was visited by Dr. Henderson, who ventured to deviate from the common opinion, to regard the woman as an impostor, and to suspect that the party by whom she had been watched had been deceived. He chiefly judged from the general appearance of her person; from her sustaining the usual eliminations of perspiration, alvine discharges, and other excretions and secretions; from former attempts at imposition by the same person, and from similar attempts by others. His pamphlet, which is well drawn up, gives us his reasons for discrediting the reality of Ann Moore's story. "I have thus," says he, "collected a suthcient body of evidence to show that that there are no solid grounds for believing that the order of nature is subverted in the person of Ann Moore; but, on the contrary, that there is every reason to consider her abstinence as feigned, and to denounce her as an artful impostor. That she may be partially diseased, and that she may subsist on small quantities of food I will not venture to deny; but that she does eat, and drink, and sleep, will, I imagine, be allowed by all who peruse the foregoing statement; and indeed must be apparent to every person of common discernment who witnesses her present condition."

The remarks contained in Dr. Henderson's pamphlet inducedmany gentlemen

gentlemen in the neighbourhood to institute a second, and if possible more scrupulous watch; aud accordingly in the month of the ensuing April the fasting woman was exposed to another course of trial, under circumstances in which it was impossible for the minutest article to be conveyed to her without the knowledge of her attendants, who performed their office by rotation. The second of the two pamphlets before us gives us the result of this ulterior experiment, al completely confirms Dr. Henderson's suspicions. The fasting woman sustained no great inconvenience, from the total abstinence to which she was hereby reduced during nearly the whole of the first week, Towards the close of it, however, this rigid forhearance from all nutriment produced a fever which kept continually increasing, "Parched with thirst, she requested the watch to give her cloths dipped in vinegar and water, which they did, and with these she kept wetting her mouth and tongue. The watch, in general, wrung out the cloths be fore they were given to her; but Mr. Wright, surgeon, of Derby, being desirous of obtaining ocular proof of her ability to swallow, gave her a cloth without wringing out. This she greedily put into her mouth, and he plainly saw the act of deglutition." On the eighth day she was exceedingly distressed. H pulse had increased till it had aniounted to a hundred and forty-five in a minute. So far was she reduced on the ninth day that she became in danger of expiring. Yet though her pulse at one wrist had entirely ceased, and at the other seemed drawn to a thread, it was with the greatest difficulty that she could be brought to confess the imposture which she had practised. She is

now," says the narrator, "sixty-four years of age; and must, when young, have been considered as possessing some share of personal charms. Her eyes have a particular penetrating keenness indicative of her mind. Her neighbours now declare that she has been seen by them walking in the street by moonlight; that they have charged her with it, but she persuaded them that it was her apparition. Amongst all the impostors that have ever offered themselves to the public, perhaps none were ever more capable of acting their part than this woman. During the first watch, (of sixteen days) she contrived so well as to deceive every one, and it is said that she was better in health at the end of the time than when the examination was first established. On the whole, though this woman is a base impostor with respect to her pretence of total abstinence from all food whatever, liquid or solid, yet she can, perhaps, endure the privation of solid food tonger than any other person. It is thought by those best acquainted with her that she existed on a mere trifle, and that from hence arose the temptation to say that she did not take any thing. If therefore any of her friends could have conveyed a bottle of water to her, unseen by the watch, and she could have occasiorally drunk out of it, little doubt is entertained but that she would have gone through the month's trial with credit. The daugh ter says that her mother's princi, al food is tea, and there is reason to believe this to be true." This last paragraph is loosely written: taking it, however, as it is intended, the case remains almost as extraordinary since the discovery of the imposture as before; for the result of the observations amounts to this, that

Aun