contrasted to rash boasting, and delusive empiricism."

Dr. Rowley not unfrequently takes occasion to refer to his other publications, and more than once speaks of his medical lectures, from which he informs us all false systems are excluded. We have no doubt that, like every other lec

turer, he adopts the system which he thinks true, and avoids those which he disapproves; but if by the expression he means to convey the idea that his lectures are peculiarly free from speculation or hypothesis, we must remark that they differ very widely from the work before us.

Our author is confident it proceeds from this latter cause, and even thinks it impious to conceive that the author of being should doom so many of his creatures to a premature death. Without dwelling on this mode of reasoning, which, when pushed to its utmost extent, would prove that pain and death ought not to exist in the world, we are more inclined to rest satisfied with his second argument, viz. that among savage nations, whose customs with respect to children materially differ from ours, this great mortality does not prevail. The deduction, however, is not quite clear that if our children were treated like those of the savages, they would equally escape the perils of infancy. A part at least of their danger is derived from the constitution of their parents, debilitated by luxury, and tainted by the maladies of their ancestors.

The prime source of the evil, with respect to our management of children, is conceived by Dr. Herdman to originate with the nurses and midwives; a tribe ignorant and prejudiced, who, in consequence of their supposed experience, are permitted to direct the mothers, and, in consequence of their influence in society, are often permitted to direct the medical practitioner. We think his remarks are in general true, but we cannot acquiesce in the remedy which he has pointed out, viz. that we should entirely disregard their direction, and, in short, all previous experience, and should be guided by instinct alone. Without entering into any metaphysical disquisition about the meaning of the term, we may be allowed to remark, that the application of instinct

to human actions is so uncertain, in con. sequence of the difficulty which we al ways have in determining what part of our knowledge we acquire by means of this principle, that we should greatly prefer the use of reason in all these cases. By this means, if any thing really valu able is suggested by instinct, it will not be disregarded.

After the preliminary observations, Dr. Herdman enters more immediately upon his subject, by considering "the management of the infant from the pe riod of his birth, till the period in which he is about to suck." Several reasons, not without foundation, are offered against the usual practice of washing the child immediately after birth.

He (the child) suffers from no less than five causes. First, from exposure to cold. Secondly, from being tossed and tumbled friction by her rough and rude hands. Fourthabout upon the nurse's knee. Thirdly, from ly, from the nature of the cleansing substance. And fifthly, he suffers, and he suffers most severely, from the excoriations and inflammations which follow this officious cleansing of his skin."

In place of this operation, the author simply recommends that the body be wiped dry with soft cotton, then wrapped up in a loose warm garment, and placed in the bosom of its mother,

His objections to the tight clothing of infants, to the swaddling bands and fillets with which they were invested, "more in the form of an Egyptian mummy than a living and feeling being,' are what every one must admit to be has of late years undergone so consider just; indeed the practice in this respect able an alteration, that we hope remarks upon this subject will soon cease to be

A good deal of stress is laid upon the temperature at which children should be kept during the first weeks of their existence. He disapproves of the use of cold bathing and frequent exposure to the cold air, which are had recourse to from an idea of their hardening or bracing the child; an idea founded upon a false theory, and actually productive of bad consequences.

«The terms air and exercise are in the mouth of every one. These powers are prescribed at all hands to the young, the old, and the middle aged; the weak and the strong; the diseased and the healthful; the infant and the adult, without the least regard or consideration of circumstances. The infant is

sent abroad to air and exercise in the most

inclement season, and even in the cold est day one can scarcely turn round without being shocked by the sight of an infant carried starving and motionless in his nurse's arms."

"But to send an infant abroad in the view of exercise is truly ridiculous; for where is the exercise of being carried motionless in a woman's arms? The exercise is to her and

not to the infant. By the exertion of walking, and of carrying the infant, the heat of agreeable, and she receives no injury, while her body is preserved, her feelings are kept the poor helpless innocent, motionless in her arms, is losing heat every moment; is starv ing alive as it were; is suffering all the pains and injurious effects of cold."

These remarks, though, perhaps, rather carried to the extreme, are, we think, deserving of serious consideration.

With respect to the period of weaning, the author lets it, in some degree, depend upon the progress of the child's teeth, conceiving that until it has some power of mastication, it ought not to be deprived of its mother's milk. The process of weaning ought, he thinks, to be brought about very gradually; many of the diseases which frequently accompany this period of life, he attributes to the sudden alteration in the diet and habits of the child.

From this abstract our readers will conclude that the work before us is not undeserving of the attentive perusal of those engaged in the management of children. The doctrines which it inculcates are, for the most part, plain and sensible; the language, though occasionally coarse, is in general clear and forcible.

THE style and composition of this reatise will confirm the character which the author has already acquired, as an legant and accomplished scholar. He seems to have imbibed no inconsiderable portion of the spirit and manner of Celsus, whose simplicity and terseness of xpression he has happily adopted.

The propriety, however, of locking up or information in a dead language, and -specially on a subject of which a great and important part would be most beeficially conferred on those whose edu

cation precludes them from any acquaintance with those languages, may be very questionable; and it seems equally doubtful whether Dr. Hebcrden's object in writing this treatise, which is to restore this department of medicine "ab anicularum et indoctorum ineptiis ad severiorem artis disciplinam," will be most effectually accomplished by these means. Those precepts which relate to the diet, and to the prevention of diseases in children, would, perhaps, be most usefully delivered to their mothers and

other febrile disease, and more especially since the evidence of the most experienced practitioners in this disease, confirms the advantage derived from gentle emetics and diaphoretics, and some even recommend the external use of cold water in its primary stage. If the active febrile actions be moderated in the commencement by these means, the subsequent prostration of strength is greatly lessened, and the necessity of recurring to bark and cordials greatly diminished. The tendency of the disease to debility. in many constitutions, and especially in some seasons of its epidemic prevalence, will of course be kept in view by the discriminating practitioner, and will regulate the early or later exhibition of these stimulating remedies. Blisters, even in the cynanche maligna, are by many practitioners considered as of doubtful utility; but in scarlatina, unless there be also an affection of the throat, we know not to what good purpose they can contribute. Dr. Heberden here makes one important observation.

"Gravis imprimis quæstio est, quam cito

This question has been little considered till lately; and a series of observations will be necessary to decide it. It must be remembered that the disease has ap peared to be communicated in several instances even later than the tenth day. (See Dr. Blackburn's Treatise.)

In several of the chapters, as in the 30th, de morbis oculorum, and the 41st, de morbillis, &c. we find a perspicuous compendium of what is most commonly known in regard to those diseases. But on the whole, whatever addition this little treatise may afford to the wellmerited reputation of the author will be on the score of his knowledge and taste in classical literature, rather than on account of any improvement which he may have attempted to introduce into the practice of medicine in the diseases of children.

THE existence of gouty affections we find recognised in the most ancient records of medical science. It

appears

that an idea was early formed that the attacks of this complaint are the operation of a salutary effort of the constitution to throw off some greater impending evil, and that consequently, though it might be necessary in some instances to moderate its severity, it was seldom, if ever, safe to attempt to remove it altogether from the system. This opinion has been transmitted, almost without in terruption, to the present age, when Dr. Darwin and Dr. Heberden ventured to call in question the stability of the principles on which it was founded. The author of the treatise before us adopts this idea in its fullest extent, and in the following work undertakes to prove

"That gout differs in no essential circumstance from common inflammation; that it is not a constitutional, but merely a local affection; that its genuine seat is exclusively in the ligamentous and tendinous structure; that its attack is never salutary; that it should neither be encouraged nor protracted; and

"" It is an erroneous notion that it may be

constituted by transient excitement, without the more stationed features of inflammation. This is transient irritation only, and wants the essential and more durable circumstances of definite gout."

It would appear from these remarks that the Doctor confines his ideas of gout to the local affection of the limb, a surmise which we find confirmed as we advance in the work. It is, indeed, expressly stated that true gout "has its station exclusively in the ligamentous and tendinous structure." If, however, the author unusually restricts the meaning of the word, by confining it to the local disease of the extremities alone, we find that he deviates as widely from popular custom in the opposite direction, in conceiving that all inflammatory action of these parts is essentially the same, and that of course gout and rheumatism differ only in degree; he even goes so far as to consider the inflammation produced by external violence, as constituting the same kind of affection.

Our readers will be doubtless anxious to learn the reasons which have induced Dr. Kinglake to form opinions so remote from those generally received. As far as we are able to comprehend his argument, it appears to be briefly this, he defines gout to be a simple inflammation of a ligament or tendon; hence it follows, first, that no part can be affected with gout that is not furnished with a ligamentous or tendinous structure; and, secondly, that every inflammation of a ligament or tendon must be gout. He, indeed, remarks, as a confirmation of his opinion, that it is often found extremely difficult to distinguish between gout and rheumatism.

"Experience bears ample testimony to the extreme difficulty of applying the prevailing ground of distinction between gout and rheu matism. Medical practitioners are often inextricably perplexed with the diagnostic phantom of gout and rheumatism. In consultation it becomes a subject of awful discussion. The irascible and bigotted are apt to dissent violently, sometimes indeed opprobriously; the demure, more gravely; whilst the polite conformist compromises the difficulty by denominating it rheumatic gout. Such puerilities surely are unworthy of medical science, and should not be tolerated in a philosophical age."

But ought this to be considered as a proof of the identity of the two diseases, or of the imperfection of science, and the ignorance of physicians? Is this the

only instance in which it has been found difficult to form a diagnostic between two diseases, the phenomena of which are sometimes seen to run into each other by almost imperceptible gradations, though their extreme cases are marked by sufficiently discriminating symptoms? Our present limits will not permit a full discussion of the question, a circumstance which we the less regret, as we feel confident that the majority of our readers will agree with us in thinking that the ordinary cases of gout and rheumatism are easily distinguished from each other, both in their cause, appearance, and consequences.

We think the author more successful in his attempt to controvert the popular idea that a quantity of morbific matter is formed in the constitution, that its deposition upon one of the extremities produces the gouty inflammation, and thus disencumbers the system of the load by which it had previously been oppressed. This hypothesis, which had its origin in the doctrines of the humoral pathology, seems indeed to have derived little support from fact, and like the other parts of that once celebrated system, must now give place to the more correct deductions of modern science. We cannot, however, adopt Dr. Kinglake's opinions in their full extent, and consider that the inflammation of gout presents nothing of a specific nature, and that it is con nected only accidentally with a general derangement of the system. Without pretending to explain the nature of the connexion, we do not hesitate to assert that this connexion does exist in gout, and that it forms a decided and will marked characteristic of the disease. The fallacy of the argument by which the author attempts to combat this opinica, we conceive our readers will not find it difficult to detect.

«Constitutional gout would pre-suppose constitutional fabric of ligament and tendon, in a state of inflammatory action from exces sive excitement. The physical conditions, or requisite structure, therefore, to give effect to what is strictly understood by gouty inflammation, can only be found in the joints. What is erroneously termed gout in the sy tem, is no more than distempered excitability, whether occurring originally or symptom atically, which may be concentrated or dr termined on the articular fabric, where it may be considered as an aggravation of the disease, by increasing the previous degree of painfu irritation, and in no instance to be remedial