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in the churchyard at night-time. Nay, it was a well-known fact, that if any person were sick in the neighbourhood, it would be for ever looking in at the window, and holding a conversation outside with somebody, they did not know whom. The gamekeeper agreed with her in everything she said on this important subject; and he always stood better in her books when he had managed to shoot a bird of this bad and mischievous family. However, in 1813, on my return from the wilds of Guiana, having suffered myself, and learned mercy, I broke in pieces the code of penal laws which the knavery of the gamekeeper and the lamentable ignorance of the other servants had hitherto put in force, far too successfully, to thin the numbers of this poor, harmless, unsuspecting tribe. On the ruin of the old gateway, against which, tradition says, the waves of the lake have dashed for the better part of a thousand years, I made a place with stone and mortar, about 4 ft. square, and fixed a thick oaken stick firmly into it. Huge masses of ivy now quite cover it. In about a month or so after it was finished, a pair of barn owls came and took up their abode in it. I threatened to strangle the keeper if ever, after this, he molested either the old birds or their young ones; and I assured the housekeeper that I would take upon myself the whole responsibility of all the sickness, woe, and sorrow, that the new tenants might bring into the Hall. She made a low courtesy; as much as to say, Sir, I fall into your will and pleasure;' but I saw in her eye that she had made up her mind to have to do with things of fearful and portentous shape, and to hear many a midnight wailing in the surrounding woods. I do not think that up to the day of this old lady's death, which took place in her eighty-fourth year, she ever looked with pleasure or contentment on the barn owl, as it flew round the large sycamore trees which grow near the old ruined gateway.

"When I found that this first settlement on the gateway had succeeded so well, I set about forming other establishments. This year I have had four broods, and I trust that next season I can calculate on having nine. This will be a pretty increase, and it will help to supply the place of those which in this neighbourhood are still unfortunately doomed to death, by the hand of cruelty or superstition. We can now have a peep at the owls, in their habitation on the old ruined gateway, whenever we choose. Confident of protection, these pretty birds betray no fear when the stranger mounts up to their place of abode. I would here venture a surmise, that the barn owl sleeps standing. Whenever we go to look at it, we invariably see it upon the perch, bolt upright; and often with its eyes closed, apparently fast asleep. Buffon and Bewick err (no doubt unintentionally) when they say that the barn owl snores during its repose. What they took for snoring was the cry of the young birds for food. I had fully satisfied myself on this score some years ago. However, in December 1823, I was much astonished to hear this same snoring kind of noise, which had been so common in the month of July. On ascending the ruin, I found a brood of young owls in the apartment.

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Upon this ruin is placed a perch, about a foot from the hole at which the owls enter. Sometimes, at mid-day, when the weather is gloomy, you may see an owl upon it, apparently enjoying the refreshing diurnal breeze. This year (1831) a pair of barn owls hatched their young, on the 7th of September, in a sycamore tree, near the old ruined gateway.

"If this useful bird caught its food by day, instead of hunting for it by night, mankind would have ocular demonstration of its utility in thinning the country of mice; and it would be protected and encouraged everwhere. It would be with us what the ibis was with the Egyptians. When it has young, it will bring a mouse to the nest about every twelve or fifteen minutes. But, in order to have a proper idea of the enormous quantity of mice which this bird destroys, we must examine the pellets which it ejects from its stomach in the place of its retreat. Every pellet contains from four to seven skeletons of mice. In sixteen months from the time that the apartment of the owl on the old gateway was cleaned out, there has been a deposit of above a bushel of pellets.

"The barn-owl sometimes carries off rats. One evening I was sitting under a shed, and killed a very large rat, as it was coming out of a hole, about ten yards from where I was watching it. I did not go to take it up, hoping to get another shot. As it lay there, a barn-owl pounced upon it, and flew away with it."

This is a long extract and more than we can well afford room for ; but it is so characteristic of the writer and so agreeable that we are sure none of our readers will think it misplaced. Altogether one rises from the perusal of the volume, not only with high and warm notions in regard to Mr. Waterton's head and heart, but with the conviction that the real disciple of Natural Science is a lover of his species and a friend to all sentient creatures.

ART. VI.-A Dissertation on the Causes and Effects of Disease, considered in Reference to the Moral Constitution of Man. By HENRY CLARK BARLOW, M. D. London: Longman and Co. 1838,

It is not alone, nor indeed chiefly, the physical causes and effects of disease which Dr. Barlow in this Inaugural Dissertation has undertaken to indicate, but rather the relations which these things hold in the moral history of our species; for he justly thinks that without a constant consideration of the adaptation of disease to the moral and mental constitution of man, both in reference to this life and that which is to come, no true or complete philosophical notions or system can be arrived at on the subject of the physical ills to which the human body is exposed, and of which it is the frequent martyr. Our author's aim, in fact, is, to show that disease is not an enemy, if all its bearings, tendencies, and uses in the economy of man's nature and destinies, be duly regarded; but that, on the contrary, it is an appointed cure for much greater evils, both because it is the means of suggesting preventives and remedies for vaster and more inveterate maladies, and because when it is endured its purpose and its capacity are to elevate and purify the noblest qualities of man and thereby secure for him the highest enjoyments. In the development of his views and the enforcement of his doctrine, Dr. Barlow displays the results of enlightened reflection and of enlarged

philosophy; although we could have wished in a short essay on such an extensive field as he has chosen, that there had been fewer repetitions of his main drift and conclusions, and more progressive and expanding power to the manifest and more compact establishment of his principal ideas. Still, however, as regards medical science, morals, and religion, the production is one of merit ; not merely because it sets in a clearer light than has generally been done the intimate connexion, or the unity, that subsists in all the exhibitions of God's will and providence with regard to man's best interests, but because the author's earnestness, philanthropy, and piety take a strong hold of the reader's sympathies, producing by means of a gracious and gratifying infection feelings as well as convictions akin to those cherished by the essayist. A glance at the leading doctrines and arguments of the work, will enable our readers in some measure to appreciate its merits and importance.

When interpreting the phenomena of matter, still more the phenomena of mind, but still more the united phenomena of both as these most strikingly develop themselves under the reign of disease, a comprehensive observation and knowledge of nature in a variety of aspects and relations become absolutely necessary before any one can arrive at satisfactory or agreeable conclusions. If wounds, fevers, pestilence, mental derangement, and the like, were merely to be viewed in a nosological manner, and only abstractedly under an enumeration of symptoms and sufferings, human existence in this world might well be pronounced a curse to which an Almighty being had subjected us, as if he delighted in the pain and misery of his passive creatures. If, however, a wider scope of particulars is embraced, if the complex history of man, the wonderfully subtle ramifications and the unlimited capacities of his nature be studied, it then will appear even to human reason that disease is not a wanton infliction, and if Revelation with all its truths and hopes be admitted, then such inflictions like all other understood phenomena will stand forth as witnesses of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator.

On referring disease to the interpretation of Scripture, our author's conclusion is only such as every Christian will readily assent to; but the evidence and the arguments which go to prove that the ailments and maladies to which man is heir to, considering him as a mortal, and merely in relation to this world, are not circumstances of unmixed evil, but are adapted to further and exalt his moral nature, and consequently to enlarge his capacity as well as taste for earthly enjoyment, may not be so manifestly clear or cogent. Therefore it will chiefly be to the illustrations made use of on this view of the subject that we shall direct attention.

Does any one think that man, constituted in body and mind as he is, would have been benefited even in this world had he been invulnerable to disease? Hear what Dr. Johnson says ;-" If the senses were feasted with perpetual pleasures, they would always keep

the mind in subjection." He also asserts that "we should pass on from crime to crime, heedless and remorseless, if misery did not stand in our way, and our pains admonish us of our folly." Paley also declares, that "A world furnished with advantages on one side, and beset with difficulties, wants, and inconveniences on the other, is the proper abode of free, rational, and active natures, being the fittest to stimulate and exercise their faculties: the very refractoriness of the objects they have to deal with, contributes to the purpose." He adds, "A world in which nothing depended upon ourselves, however it might have suited an imaginary race of beings, would not have suited mankind;" while, as our author clearly shows, such an imaginary race could neither have entertained the same exalting motives, the same purifying sympathies, nor have reached the same high intellectual development and capacity of enjoyment which have ample scope and inducements in the present state of our existence.

But even the amount and virulence of disease are to a great extent dependent upon ourselves either as individuals, or as a community; while, if we consider suffering as lending an opportunity for studying not only the most effectual human means of removing it, but of preventing its continuance, return, and propagation, the evil of its occurrence on any occasion decreases and assumes a moderated aspect. Then as to the moral effects of disease, these are also much in our own power and under our own controul.

To see that the prevention and amelioration of suffering under endemical diseases, for example, depends much upon man, just attend to the influence of draining unhealthy marshes, of cleanliness, of agriculture, of the planting of trees for the purpose of intercepting the progress of malaria. Think also of the benefits of a free current of air in houses and streets to neutralize any noxious qualities that may mingle in the atmosphere. Then the lessons as to diet, modes of life, habits of exercise, and above all, the regulation of the mind, necessarily come in for their share of importance, to the modification of prevailing maladies that cannot from local or periodical circumstances be wholly avoided.

Our author quotes Dr. John Hunter's authority, who even says, "If a disease arise from contagion, there are sure remedies against it, which are so well ascertained, that while the plague, the most contagious and fatal of all diseases commits its greatest ravages in large cities, individuals remain in the midst of them in perfect security, trusting to a careful seclusion under proper regulations." Dr. Barlow follows up this opinion in the following manner:

"When the plague is at Constantinople, the Frank residents live in perfect security within the suburb of Pera; and it is well known that the disease does not even cross the confined streets of the city, though not more than ten feet wide. During a residence at Aleppo, at the time of the plague,

Dr. Russell found himself quite safe at a distance of four or five feet from the sick. The contagion of small pox was believed by Dr. Haygarth, not only from his own experience, but also from a series of experiments conducted by Dr. O'Ryan of Lyons, not to extend beyond half a yard from the patient; and the contagion of typhus to be at least as limited.' That the morbific effluvia, therefore, are confined to a very small space around the sufferer, we may fairly conclude; and if we ask, Why is this?-why does not the matter of contagion extend its influence or treble this distance ?the obvious reply is, Because the laws of Nature have been framed with a benevolent purpose, and herein is this purpose apparent, in that, as Dr. Henry remarks,' it admits of all those soothing and beneficial ministrations, which do not require a very near approach to the sick, with little or no danger to the friends and attendants.'

"It is a happy circumstance for mankind, that by shutting themselves up. they may shut out this formidable malady. But absolute seclusion does not appear to be required. Dr. Russel, during his residence at Aleppo, although he confined himself to the house, used to prescribe for the numerous patients who came to consult him, from a window raised a few feet above the ground, and yet escaped the disease. Bonaparte also, during his Egyptian expedition, in order to inspire confidence, did not hesitate to shake hands with the sick, though he carefully avoided inhaling their breaths. Indeed, so long as the breaths of the patients are avoided, and as much as possible all personal contact, the medical attendants seem to run little risk, and may inhale, for a limited time, the atmosphere of a pest house without taking the disease.'"

Though our author states that contagious diseases are more under human controul than some others, yet he admits that none have perhaps been so destructive, from the utter diregard shown to the causes which combine to occasion them. It is to be hoped, however, that some of these causes have become better understood, and that in the course of civilization they will be unknown, such as war, which Dr. Barlow in a very interesting chapter shows to be one of the most conspicuous.

"Though it may be difficult to determine in what manner a contagious poison is generated in the living system, yet it is very easy to point out under what circumstances this takes place, and to specify the conditions favourable to its production; for these are matters of experience so notorious, that both ancient and modern history afford abundant instances of their reality and confirmation. The crowding together of considerable numbers of men in camps and besieged cities, where, to all the horrors of war, fatigue, famine, and despair are added;-the privations and sufferings consequent upon military operations in general, especially when these are associated with defeat and mental depression-are causes which have been known so frequently to give rise to malignant contagious diseases, and to be the occasions of their spreading, that the connexion has become proverbial; and the appearance of the pestilence has justly been regarded as an almost necessary consequence of drawing the sword. There is scarcely any instance, says Sir John Pringle, of a town being long invested without some VOL. 11. (1838). No. I.

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