failure, the subsequent small-pox has been in some degree modified, so as to render it probable that the constitution had been affected by the vaccination, although not in such a degree as to obtain complete security; the variolous pustules are small and tuberculated, like those that are generally produced by inoculation: but they are capable of propagating the small-pox. In some places, a great outcry has been raised against the cow-pox, in consequence of its having been supp sed to induce a formidable train of eruptive complaints. This objection is repelled by Dr. Willan in the most decisive manuer; and we trust that the weight of his authority will prevent its being repeated. He informs us that the records of the public dispensaries in the metropolis do not shew any increase in the number of cutaneous diseases; and we do not find that any unpleasant effect has ever been supposed to follow the disease, in those districts in which it has long existed in the accidental and most aggravated form. A section is added on the chicken and swine-pox, in which the characters of these diseases are accurately detailed. They are in themselves of little importance, but they become interesting in consequence of the resemblance which they bear to small-pox of the mildest kind.

An appendix is subjoined to the work, consisting of com munications from Dr. Willan's correspondents in different parts of the kingdom, respecting the progress of the vaccine inoculation, and the success that has attended it. The most full and satisfactory account of country-practice is that which is contained in a letter from Dr. Rütter of Liverpool.

ART. V. The Naval, Military, and Private Practitioner's Amanuersis medicus et chirurgicus: or a practical Treatise on Fevers, and all those Diseases which most frequently occur in Practice, with the Mode of Cure. Likewise on Amputation, Gun-shot Wounds, Trismus, Scalds, &c. with new and successful Methods of treating Mortification, of Amputating at the Shoulder Joint, and of curing Femoral Fractures By Ralph Cuming, M. D. R. N. Medical Superintendant of His Majesty's Naval Hospital, Antigua. 8vo. PP. 370. 78. Boards. Mathews and Leigh. 1806.

T must frequently happen that the judgment, which an author forms of his own work, will vary materially from that of the critic but we have seldom, if ever, met with an instance in which this difference of opinion was more striking than in the present case. While Dr. Cuming insinuates that his volume will afford the practitioner all the information that can be acquired from books, and that it contains, in a concentrated

form,

form, the essence of modern medicine, we are obliged to state as the result of our examination of its contents, that it is defective in many important particulars, that it broaches doctrines which are dangerous, and that it lays down rules for practice which are not sanctioned by experience.

Fever is the first subject which falls under the author's consideration; and in order to give our readers an idea of his talents, we shall present them with his leading doctrines on this point. He describes the symptoms of typhus with tolerable accuracy, and gives the common directions for its management, when existing in the mild form :-if the symptoms be more violent, and the temperature of the body much increased, he properly recommends the cold affusion, which ought to be repeated until the heat of the skin is reduced; when probably perspiration will ensue, and immediate relief will be experienced. This, however, he remarks, is not always the case, but the patient sometimes becomes exhausted, and sinks into all the horrors of the disease, such as coma, delirium, pervigilium, &c. :'

When,' adds Dr. Cuming, all that remaineth to be done in this torpid and half-dead state, is to have recourse to that tribe of medicines denominated the diffusible stimuli, which are opium, volatile alkali, musk, æther, wine, and brandy: these too, are often found ineffectual. And after they have had a most patient and impartial trial, I have repeatedly known the disease subdued' by mercurial inunctions, and never knew them fail,, when once their action could be excited, which when timely applied, need never be despaired of. I do aver that I never lost a patent after having used them. Therefore I consider mercury a sine quâ non which performs wonders!

It is necessary to remind our readers, that the author is not here describing the yellow fever of America and the West Indies, but the common typhus fever of this climate.-The fondness which he exhibits for mercury, and the success which has attended his administration of it, are not less remarkable than the unfavorable opinion which he entertains of bark:

I believe I should not err,' he says, were I roundly to assert, that bark in substance should never be given in this case. I never knew it taken in substance where there was great debility, without the very worst of consequences; it increases the fever and musea by its irritation, and instead of strengthening the organs of digestion, completely ruins them, producing vomition,, and a train of fatal symptoms: therefore I am persuaded that those men who have so strenuously recommended it, have not profited by observation, or have attributed that derangement which it invariably produces to the effects of the disease, never once dreaming that this indigestible ligneous matter, could by its mild mechanical action on a highly irritable and delicate nervous membrane, be productive of the smallest uneasiness."

REV. JULY, 1807.

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We shall make one farther quotation, respecting the treatment of the diarrhoea which occasionally supervenes in the last stages of typhus:

In colliquative diarrhea, opium has hitherto been considered our sheet anchor; but when this fails, are we to remain at ease, and suppose that the patient must be left to his fate? no, far otherwise, I once had a case of dysenteria, when every thing was done that I could possibly devise, without effect, which to my great astonishment, was completely cured by mercurial inunctions, after opium and the whole tribe of astringents had failed.'

We have deemed it proper to give the precise words of Dr. Cuming, lest we should be suspected of having misunderstood or misrepresented his meaning on these points, in which his opinion is so much at variance with that of the profession at large.

After having described the continued fever, the author proceeds to consider the intermittent; and here again he enters into an invective against the employment of bark, which, (he says) so far from removing the disease, often retards the cure, and even produces a relapse. Fortunately, however, for the welfare of the community, Dr. Cuming has been not less happy in the treatment of this species of fever, than he was in the continued; for, as he informs us, there is a remedy which he has long and most successfully used in the cure of intermittents, viz. the zincum vitriolatum or white vitriol, which I have known to cure when bark and other remedies have been unavailing indeed with me it never yet failed!'

These are not the only instances of Dr. C.'s extraordinary success in the adoption of new modes of practice. In ophthalmia, after having declaimed against the vile and farraginous nostrums, which have been handed down from masters to their apprentices, from generation to generation,' he assures us that he never fails of curing the disease by the simple application of cold water; a practice which will bear the keenest criticism, for it stands upon the basis of experience, and is supported by the light of reason and natural philosophy.' Thus much for the author's medicine!

The latter part of the work, in which the Doctor treats on surgical subjects, is on the whole less objectionable; many of the remarks appear judicious; and he displays less ignorance and less conceit. Near the conclusion of the volume, we meet with the new plan of treating mortification; it principally. consists in the application of nitre, which the author styles a sovereign remedy, and the only effectual one that has hitherto been discovered. We acknowlege that the general strain of Dr. Cuming's work does not induce us to yield implicit confidence

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fidence to his assertions, but we feel inclined to make a trial of this practice. We must not, however, omit to remark that the effect of the high commendation, which the author bestows on nitre, is considerably weakened in our estimation by another invective against bark; which, he says, I know from the most correct and sure observation, to be productive of the most calamitous consequences.'

ART. VI. Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham Castle and Town, Representative of the County of Nottingham in the Long Parliament, and of the Town of Nottingham in the first Parliament of Charles II. &c. with original Anecdotes of many of the most distinguished of his Contemporaries, and a summary Review of Public Affairs; written by his Widow Lucy, Daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower, &c. now first published from the original Manuscript by the Rev. Julius Hutchinson, &c. &c. To which is prefixed the Life of Mrs. Hutchinson, written by herself, a Fragment. 4to. PP. 446. l. s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co., 1806.

APOLOGIES are offered by the editor, in his preface, for

laying before the public the present performance :"but we consider them as altogether unnecessary; for if it be in a degree a sort of private muniment, of which he as a representative of the family has the custody, yet it is not less a record in which the community has an interest. It is the production of a fair writer who was intimately acquainted with the transactions of which she speaks, who was mistress of a flowing pen, and who imparts her communications in a style highly impassioned, yet of great simplicity; who, though a zealous partisan in times of heat and animosity, writes with unusual fairness; who has preserved numerous traits characteristic of the period, and has placed in a fuller light some of the features by which it is characterized. While she pourtrays the fond object of her story, the reader becomes acquainted with the artist herself; he discovers in her not only eminent sensibility, but a large share of that judgment and that discernment which are more usually regarded as the attributes of men; and he finds her distinguished by that piety which elevates and purifies the` mind without rendering it forbidding and morose, which exalts the conduct without contracting the heart. In her we contemplate religion imparting the last finish to a finely gifted nature. The qualities of her mind were of a superior order; and her acquirements would at any time be deemed uncommon, but were peculiarly rare at the period in which she lived.

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Though

Though the subject of this lady's memoir fell into serious errors, it is impossible not to respect his intentions, and to revere his virtues. He comes in every sense within the description which the poet allots to the noblest work of God; and in the close of his career, he displays the sublime spectacle of a good man struggling with adversity.

As the view which the editor takes of this narrative appears to us to require scarcely any qualification, we submit it to our readers:

The only ends for which any book can reasonably be published are to inform, to amuse, or to improve but unless many persons of highly reputed judgment are mistaken as well as ourselves, this work will be found to attain all three of them.. In point of amusement, perhaps novelty or curiosity hold the foremost, rank; and surely we risque little in saying that a history of a period the most remarkable in the British anuals, written one hundred and fifty years ago by a lady, of elevated birth, of a most comprehensive and highly cultivated mind, herself a witness of many of the scenes she describes, and active in several of them, is a literary curiosity of no

mean sort.

As to information, although there are many histories of the same period, there is not one that is generally considered satisfactory; most of them carry evident marks of prejudice or partiality nor were any of those, which are now read, written at or near the time, or by persons who had an opportunity of being well acquainted with what was passing, except that of Clarendon. But any one who should take the pains, which the Editor has done, to examine Clarendon's State Papers, would find therein documents much better calculated to support Mrs. Hutchinson's representation of affairs than that which he himself has given, Mrs. Hutchinson writing from a motive which will very seldom be found to induce any one to take so much trouble, that of giving her children, and especially her eldest son, then about to enter on the stage of life, a true notion of those eventful scenes which had just been passing before her eyes, and which she well judged must be followed by others not less interesting to the same cause and persons, will surely be thought to have possessed both the means and the inclination to paint with truth and correctness: in effect she will be seen to exhibit such a faithful, natural, and lively picture, of the public mind and manners, taken sometimes in larger, sometimes in smaller groupes, as will give a more satisfactory idea to an observant reader than he will any where else discover. He will be further pleased to see avoided the most common error of historians, that of displaying the paradoxical and the marvellous, both in persons and things. But surely the use of history being to instruct the present and future ages by the experience of the past, nothing can be more absurd than a wish to excite and leave the reader in astonishment, which instead of assisting, can only confound his judgment. Mrs. Hutchinson, on the contrary, has made it her business, and that very successfully, to account by common and easy causes for many of those actions and

effects