MEDICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE.

ROYAL SOCIETY.--The reading of Mr. Davy's Bakerian Lecture was continued on the 6th of December, and concluded on the 13th.' In this part of the lecture Mr. Davy detailed a number of experiments, which he regarded as showing that when any metallic oxide is converted into the substance improperly called a muriate, but which is a binary combination of oxymuriatic gas and a metal, the oxygen produced is ex actly that which had been absorbed by the metal: and he stated, that the proportions of oxygen or of oxymuriatic gas which contbine with metals, are always definite; and that when two proportions combine, the one bears a simple ratio to the other.

Mr. Davy, inferring from the whole series of facts that oxymuriatic gas must be considered as a substance as yet undecompounded, and analogous in many of its properties to oxygen gas, but having stronger attractions for most inflammable bodies, suggests the necessity of altering its name; which conveys so false an idea of its nature.

Conceiving it dangerous in the present improving state of science to adopt any names connected with theoretical arrangements, which may require alteration as knowledge advances, he ventures to suggest for the consideration of chemical philosophers the name of chlorice, derived from its green colour; and he proposes to signify its compounds by the name of the basis, with a termination in ine or ane: thus hornsilver, improperly called muriate of silver, would be named argentane; muriate of barytes, barytine, &c.

The Groonian Lecture on Muscular Motion was read by Mr. Brodie, on the 13th and 20th of December. The subjects introduced in this lecture were less numerous, and the discussions less varied, than usual on similar occasions; and very little or no reference was made to muscular action, the ingenious lecturer confining himself to a simple detail of the thermometrical effects on the animal body, in consequence of dividing the spinal marrow and afterwards inflating the lungs artificially with a pair of bellows, and continuing the circulation of the blood under such circumstances for nearly two hours. The subjects of operation were chiefly rabbits: and the author made a great number of experiments on these animals by dividing the spinal marrow and suffering them to die in this manner, noticing their temperature and that of the room at particular periods; or, after dividing the spinal marrow, inflating the lungs, and thus keeping up the circulation for an hour, and even an hour and a half; noting also the temperature of the heart, intestines, and rectum, at various times during the experiments, The result of the author's inquiries was, that animal heat does not appear to be produced, as generally supposed, by the action of the air on the lungs, and the circulation of the blood; as those animals whose lungs were inflated, and the circulation artificially continued, were always from one to three or four degrees colder in a certain time than those whose spinal marrow was divided and suffered to die. Professor Davy suggested to the author, that the cold air thrown into the lungs (which produced

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the usual change in the colour of the blood) might contribute to this effect; and accordingly an experiment was made to obviate such consequence by means of ligature; when it appeared, that in an hour and forty minutes the body in which the circulation was artificially continued after dividing the spinal marrow, was only one degree colder than that which died immediately. Mr. B.'s experiments seem to militate against the doctrine of the vitality of the blood; but they do little towards illustrating the fact, that tortoises can live and walk about long after having been deprived entirely of the brain, and even part of the... spinal marrow.

On the evening of the 20th, part of a letter from Dr. Parry, of Bath, was read, on certain nervous affections; as convulsions, tremulous motions, and sudden startings or pulsations of what is vulgarly called the life blood.

ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH-On Monday the 5th of November, the Royal Society of Edinburgh met for the first time in their new apartments in George-street, when Dr. Thomas Thomson read two. papers, giving the account of the analyses of two new minerals from Greenland. To one of them he has given the name of allanite, and to the other sodalite. In the first he discovered a considerable portion of cerium, and in one analysis he detected a quantity of a metallic oxide. perfectly new in its properties, for which he proposed the name of jus nonium. The other mineral, according to his investigation, affords 23 per cent. of soda and three of muriatic acid. By an analysis of Mr. Ekeberg, the same constituents were yielded in the proportions of 25 per cent. and six per cent.

At the next meeting on the 19th, a short communication was read, respecting a singular water-spout observed at Ramsgate.

On the 3d inst. a paper by Dr. Brewster was read, being a new demonstration of the fundamental properties of the lever.—Also a communication by Sir George Mackenzie, bart. relative to the hot springs of Iceland; when Sir George exhibited some beautiful drawings and part of a series of magnificent specimens from that country, which he proposes to deposit in the cabinet of the Society: and at the last meeting, on the 17th, Sir George began a description of the minerals of iceland, when he exhibited specimens from the district called the Guld-. bringe Syssel.

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Vaccination in France. The following document, which appears be official, points out the system pursued by the French legislature to promulgate vaccination, and to disseminate the evidence of the benefit arising from adopting that discovery.

Ten years of labour and success have at length decided the important question, as to the vaccine possessing the power of preserving all. those in whom it has regularly gone through its progress, from the small-pox. This has been carried to such a degree of certainty by the experiments of the Central Committee, and its numerous correspondents, as well Frenchmen as strangers, that there is not at present any fact in medicine better proved, or more certain, than that which establishes the truly anti-variolous power of the Vaccine.

His Majessty the Emperor and Kin, to whom the different reports of the Central Committee have been presented, has been sensible of the advantages which would result from the general propagation of the new inoculation. His Majesty has seen the preservation and increase of the population of his vast empire, immediately connected with the adoption of this method. He has had an account rendered to him of the obsta cles which, in some districts, might yet oppose its progress, and has found that these consisted principally in the great difficulty of procuring and preserving the vaccine fluid..

In consequence, his Majesty, wishing to give to his people a signal: mark of his paternal solicitude, has granted to his Excellency, the Minister of the Interior, an annual and special credit, destined to provide for the expences necessary for extending the practice. He has formed, in twenty-four of the principal cities of France, depots of the vaccine fluid, where every one who wishes to practice vaccination may be sure of always finding disposable matter. These are, Besançon, Bourdeaux, Brussels, Caen, Clement-Ferrand, Dijon, Florence, Lisle, Lyons, Mar seilles, Mentz, Montpellier, Nancy, Nantes, Orleans, Parma, Rheims, Rennes, Rouen, Saintes, Strasbourg, Thoulouse, Tours, and Turin.

His Majesty has further created a Vaccine Committee at each of these depots, and has preserved to the Central Committee, established near his Excellency the Minister of the Interior, its original organization, in charging it with the central depot of Paris.

In conclusion, his Majesty has appointed, by his decree of the 6th of November last, annual rewards for those who shall have performed the greatest number of operations-collected the most important factsovercome most obstacles and arrested the course of variolous epide mics. These rewards have been so distributed that every effort has been noticed, and every labour proportionably recompensed.

They are thus determined :—1st, A prize of 3000 francs; 2d, two prizes of 2000 francs; 3d, Three prizes of 1000 francs; and 4th, a hundred silver medals bearing the head of the Emperor.

These powerful motives always to keep up and preserve the Vaccine fluid; this energetic incentive to an emulation which must direct all the efforts of the practitioners towards a rapid propagation of the Vaccine, leads to the hope that the public communication of his Majesty's benevolent intentions, will be sufficient to give a general impulse in favour of the new method, and banish in a few years that scourge, the small-pox, from the French territory.

Already the returns of the mortality in the city of Paris, for the year 1809, exhibit only 213 deaths, by small-pox. This number, though yet too considerable, since the vaccine offered to these 213 victims a certain method of preservation, is yet extremely small in comparison of that of some years, when the epidemic small-pox has carried off, in the same city, more than 20,000 individuals. The Committee does not hesitate to attribute this diminution of mortality to the zeal with which the different Members, who compose it, have extended the practice in the large establishments to which they are attached, as physicians and sur geons; to the efforts of all the professional men, and of some ecclesiastics in the capital; and lastly to the conspicuous exertions of Messieurs the Counsellors of State, the Prefects of the Seine and of Police,

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the Mayors and their assistants, who have always seconded the Committee with the greatest zeal, and in many instances anticipated its intentions.

Every good man, and every friend to mankind, may hope then, that the new measures taken by his Majesty will at length effect that which the labours of the Committee have long led them to expect. There is reason to believe, that they will so stimulate the emulation of all physicians and surgeons, that very shortly the small-pox, already unknown in many departments, where the zeal of the prefects has been such that there remain none to vaccinate but the infants born in every year, will entirely disappear from France, as the leprosy has done, of which no traces are found, except in the history of the worst governed ages of our Monarchy.

The Committee embraces this opportunity of reminding the public, that the Central Establishment of the Vaccine, founded the 7th of February, 1801, and situated in No. 1, Rue du Battoir, St. Andre-desArcs, is still carried on; that vaccination is practised gratuitously there every Tuesday and Saturday, at noon; that the children of the poor are admitted gratuitously during the course of the Vaccine; and that application for vaccine fluid should be addressed, under cover to his Excellency, to M. Husson, Physician of the Hotel Dieu, and of the Im perial Lyceum, Secretary to the Committee.

Given at the sitting of the 11th of May, 1810, the day of the 10th Anniversary of the foundation of the Committee.

Signed by all the Members.-Duchanoy, President; Corvisart, Delasteyrie, Doussin-Dubreuil, Guillotin, Hall, Hazard, Jadelot, J. J. Le roux, Marin, Mongenot, Parfait, Pinel, Salmade, Thouret-Husson, Secretary.

Inquiries concerning the Eau Medicinale and the Rhododendron Chrysanthum.

Has the Rhododendron Chrysanthum been lately used in Scotland? Has it obtained any reputation for the cure of gout or rheumatism? Is it cultivated in Britain? If not cultivated in this country, where or how is the genuine plant to be procured? Have the other species of rhododendron any medical powers?

The reasons for wishing to obtain information on these points, are the following: A medicine has lately been imported from France under the title of Eau Medicinale d'Husson, and now much used for the relief of the paroxysms of gout, with great efficacy and perfect, safety. The effects and operation of the Eau Medicinale, and those said to arise from the use of rhododendron, are so strikingly similar, that it is suspected the Eau Medicinale is prepared from the rhododendron. The Eau Medicinale is professed to be prepared from a vegeta ble substance, which vegetable is said to be discovered, and an imitation of the Eau Medicinale is made from it, and advertised for sale in London, but still as a secret.

Dr. Home's experiments with rhododendron were unsuccessful in acute rheumatism, but it was found to be active and powerful, and as it has obtained a place in the Materia Medica of the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, I am in hopes, that you, Gentlemen, or some of your readers,

will be able from later experience, to say whether it is possessed' of the virtues attributed to it by Koelpen, aud others upon the Continent.

In Dr. Woodville's Medical Botany, there is a figure of the Rhododendron Chrysanthum. It is a native of Siberia, and he says is not yet introduced into Britain. I have not found it in the catalogues of our nurserymen, nor in our plantations and shrubberies but my local and confined situation may be the means of my not knowing where it is to be procured.

Should my suspicions prove well-founded, and the rhododendron be possessed of similar powers to the Eau Medicinale, it will be an acceptable service to gouty sufferers, and also to the faculty, to rescue an useful medicine from the hands of Quackery."

The Editors of the Edin. Jour. to whom these inquiries were addressed, say, that the last Rhododendron Chrysanthum used in Scotland, was a parcel of the dried leaves sent from Russia by Dr. Guthrie of St. Petersburgh, to Dr. Duncan, senior. It was introduced into the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, chiefly on account of the reputation it had procured in Russia as a cure for rheumatism; but the trials here did not correspond with its reputation, as we never saw any remarkable benefit from its use. In particular, it never produced a purgative effect, and is therefore probably not the basis of the Eau Medicinale, which is said to operate powerfully even in small doses. It has not yet been cultivated in Scotland, although the rhododendron Dauricum has been mistaken for it. It is however mentioned in Don's catalogue of the Cambridge Botanical Garden, as introduced there in 1801, and is, as might have been supposed, marked hardy. It is figured in the Botanical Magazine for March or April last. The Rhododendron Ferrugineum is supposed to possess similar virtues.

We have lately been informed, that the digitalis lutea is supposed to be the basis of the Eau Medicinale. Edin. Jour. 1811

Extract of a Letter concerning the Empirical Gout Medicine, called Ean Medicinale d'Husson.

A number of respectable testimonies, it must be granted, have ap peared within the last six or eight months in favour of this nostrum, But a keen and experienced observer will not feel conviction, notwithstanding the tide of popular opinion: 1. Because he will recollect, that on former occasions the public admitted the testimonies of patients, and even of medical men, as quite satitfactory of the efficacy of various gout medicines, which, however, proved to enjoy but a temporary existence.

2. Because the influence of public opinion is at present such as to carry efficacy along with the exhibition of any medicine which is not positively hurtful, but especially if it be a medicine which is really be neficial on account of purgative, and perhaps some sedative virtues.

3. The shocking ignorance of medical science displayed in the printed directions by the author of the Eau Medicinale d'Husson, at least proves that the public is not indebted to any person capable of adequate obser vation, for this medicine.

4. The known discredit, and even prohibition of this nostrum in Paris, serve to shew, that in all probability it has, on trial, been proved not to answer the expectations of the Parisians.