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institution for that specific purpose. He had previously secured the powerful assistance of Mr. Watt, to construct his apparatus. In four months a second edition with additions and improvements was published in this, Dr. Beddoes has related many interesting experiments, illustrative of the effects of the different gasses.

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"In the mean time, his attention was not unawakened by the political occurrences which took place at the close of this year. He wrote for a certain society, an address to Thomas Hardy upon his acquittal. It is conceived in a style of forcible and indignant eloquence; and animadverts with the most poignant severity upon the conduct of Mr. Pitt, in persecuting the most consistent adherents of a cause, of which, he himself had once been one of the most distinguished advocates." P. 106:

His published writings this year finished with a narrative of the good effects of opium in counteracting an excessive dose of digitalis; this appeared in the 5th vol. of the Medical Facts and Observations.

In the year 1795, his well-known edition of Brown's Ele ments of Medicine was given to the public. This was almost immediately followed by a translation, from the Spanish, of Gimbernat's New Method of operating in Femoral Hernia. His labours in promoting the pneumatic medicine were ardently continued, and many cases in which it had been practised, being communicated to him, he was enabled in the autumn to publish a third part of the Considerations.

"He complains, in a letter written in November of this year, that his literary pursuits were suspended and interrupted by a concourse of patients. Notwithstanding this complaint, however, it appears that he found leisure for the composition of some of his most celebrated political productions." P. 114.

These followed each other in rapid succession.

"The following are the names and dates of these writings: A Word in Defence of the Bill of Rights against Gagging Bills. Where would be the Harm of a speedy Peace? Both published in the Winter of 1795: An Essay on the Public Merits of Mr. Pitt: A Letter to Mr. Pitt on the Scarcity; both in 1796: Alternatives compared, or, What shall the Rich do to be Safe? 1797."

These tracts are written with much spirit, energy, and manly freedom: the argumentative parts are occasionally enlivened by the warm colouring of a powerful imagination; and sometimes an admirable vein of irony is introduced. We regret that our limits, and the nature of this Journal, preclude us from inserting some of the numerous extracts which Dr. Stock has cited from these productions, which, independently of their literary excellence, do great honor to Dr. Beddoes, as a man of humanity, keen penetration, and inflexible integrity.

Dr.

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Dr. Beddoes' opinion of the zoonomia which appeared about this time, and of which he had seen the proof sheets, merits a particular notice. Of the first volume he observed in a letter to a friend :

"Dr. Darwin has in the press a work of the most astonishing ingenuity, and I believe I may add, truth. It is a treatise upon the laws of animal nature, which he has been the first to discover fully. It is, as to materials and arrangement, perhaps the most original work ever composed by mortal man."

Of the second volume he remarked, "Dr. Darwin's second volume is out, and his analysis of morbid phenomena is one of the greatest exertions of the human understanding. The foundation of the most important and difficult science is fairly laid. There will be an end of medical imposture in due time; and if the profession continue to exist, the number of its members will be wonderfully diminished."

Towards the end of 1796, Dr. B. published the fourth and fifth parts of the Considerations on Factitious Airs.

"The fourth part consists of reports of cases treated by the pneu matic remedies. The fifth contains a variety of miscellaneous articles. The greater part of it is occupied by a description of Mr. Watt's impli fied pneumatic apparatus, drawn up by the inventor; and including many hints and cautions with respect to the preparation or employment of the gasses."

In 1797, he published, "Suggestions towards setting on foot the projected establishment for ascertaining the powers of factitious airs in medicine.."

He also wrote a small volume of reports of cases in which nitrous acid had been administered, and an introductory lecture of a course of lectures on anatomy, which his biographer ranks amongst the most valuable of his publications.

The following year, Dr. Beddoes had the satisfaction of opening the pneumatic institution, and of obtaining the assistance in superintending it of a gentleman, whose rising talents Dr. Stock observes

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Eminently qualified him to enter into his views, and to assist in ascertaining and developing the resources of pneumatic medicine; and the more mature expansion of whose powers has since at once established his own fame, and extended the scientific reputation of his country. In one of the most remote parts of Cornwall, a young man, only nineteen years of age, with little access to philosophical books, and none at all to philosophical men,' during the course of an education, designed only to qualify him to act as a country practitioner of medicine, detected some inconsequent reasoning upon Caloric, which deformed the French theory of chemistry, struck out new views both upon that subject and upon lights, and supported them by a variety of novel experiments, ingeniously conceived and diversified." P. 154.

After this extract we need scarcely mention that this gentleman was Mr. Davy, who now occupies a foremost station in the ranks of science. (To be continued.)

Practical Observations on morbid _Enlargements of the Testicle, &c. By THOMAS RAMSDEN, Esq.

(Continued from page 177.) ·

In the preceding number we endeavoured to lay before our readers a general statement of the principles of this work, which, both from the character of its author, and from the novelty of remark it promises, cannot fail to interest that particular department of the medical profession, to which it peculiarly applies. We now purpose to enter on an analysis of its contents.

The work opens with an assertion that many of the diseases of the testicle depend on a latent irritation within the urethra. This species, form, or degree of irritation, is denominated latent, on account of its extreme subtlety, and because the change in the membrane of the urethra from a natural healthy state is of a concealed nature, is shewn only by effects on other parts, and passes unobserved by the patient.

"The power of this principle to effect à derangement of the testicle can be exemplified in the gland itself; and may also be inferred from analogy in a variety of instances, in which other parts of the body (much less susceptible than the testicle, and situated also at a greater distance from the source of excitement than that gland is from the urethra) are occasionally placed under induration, from causes equally subtle and unobserved as that which is so frequently concealed within the urinary passage."

This subtle or insensible irritation is considered to constitute the basis of many formidable complaints, and is a fertile source of morbid derangements.

"Many instances of the baneful effect of this latent yet powerful agent of disease daily present themselves in various parts of the system, but which we have not been accustomed to trace to this particular source; I shall therefore introduce a few familiar examples of the general influence of insensible and slight irritation, previous to the more particular examination of its effect on that important gland, which is exclusively the subject of the present enquiry.

"When a susceptible or bloodshot point of membrane exists within the cavity of a joint, although so slight and subtle as to create no sensible uneasiness to the patient, it will cause such enlargement and induration of the adjoining parts as has been frequently mistaken for an expansion of the condyles themselves; this state of parts commonly *

* I believe I might say always, instead of commonly. I am indeed of opinion that a bloodshot state of membrane is the common basis of the white swelling; in other words, that the chronic enlargement and induration of parts surrounding joints, and the hectic fever which ensues, are solely dependent on such a source of slight excitement within their cavities. I ground this opinion on the strict analogy which the progress of white swelling seems (No. 145.) M m

exists in that derangement of the knee joint which is called the white swelling.

"A similar effect takes place in those affections which we term scrofulous, and which seem to commence in the medullary parts of bones, in the tibia for instance, when a partial absorption of the body of the bone is taking place, or any very minute particle of osseous matter is slowly making its way towards the surface, the surrounding parts, without being in any degree inflamed or painful, will increase in bulk, and assume a resistent hardness, bearing every external resemblance to an increase of bony substance: yet these appearances immediately subside on the exfoliating bony particle being set at liberty.

"The common corn on the toe or foot is capable of inducing a flinty induration and enlargement of the inguinal glands, without in itself being sufficiently painful to awaken the attention of the patient to the part on which it is situated; in these cases, indeed, not only the source of irritation, but the affected gland also, will be so entirely free from uneasiness, that the induration will often advance to a considerable size before the patient becomes conscious of it.

"The mischiefs of insensible irritation frequently extend beyond those parts which are first exposed to its influence; when, for instance, it has occasioned an induration of any distant or neighbouring gland, such gland in its turn becomes a source of excitement to others, until the whole lymphatic system successively be affected.

"Latent irritation, besides inducing enlargement and hardness of glands, and other parts as rugged and resistent as that state which we frequently call scirrhus, has the further property of placing distant or neighbouring parts under characters and symptoms which are generally believed to be distinctly characteristic of certain constitutional affections. "Thus in cases of confirmed syphilis, long after the venereal virus has been eradicated by a sufficient and judicious use of mercury, and the patient has been apparently restored to health, ulcerations will take place in the throat or on the palate, so exactly resembling the symptoms of venereal disease in these parts as to deceive even an experienced practitioner; yet such ulcerations eventually disappear on the exfoliation of some particle or portion of bone from the interior of the nose, which had latently produced the mischief.

"A singular example of the effect of subtle and distant excitement is afforded in worm cases, in which the sympathetic irritation within the nose, by long continuance, will cause thickening and abrasion of the membrane, and even exfoliation of the bones. These appearances in children have been occasionally mistaken for hereditary venereal disease; and a hasty, incautious expression of such an opinion by a professional man has sometimes involved parents in the deepest distress."

Two cases of steatoma, rendered malignant by common irritation, are given in exemplification of the principle Mr. Ramsden labours to establish.

to bear to those morbid derangements of various parts of the system which can be traced to similar sources of latent irritation.

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From these analogies, the main object of the volume, diseases of the testicle, is entered upon. It appears that enlargement and induration of the testicle often arises from stricture in the urethra, not known to have existence; and a strongly marked case is given, where the disease resisted every remedy, but was at length removed by the bougie. In this case it was not probable that the stricture had been the result of gonorrhoeal inflammation, but arose from some other irritation.

"The causes tending to produce a derangement of the membrane of the urethra are too numerous to admit of being distinctly specified; many of them are very remote, and others probably too minute and latent to be discovered by surgical investigation. In general it may be said, that whatever occasions a frequency of muscular action upon the urethra, or a frequency of excitement within it, or whatever induces a temporary inflammation of the canal, may establish a state of irritation in its membrane.

"Thus constitutional irritability, high living, excess in venery, indulgence in onanism, gonorrhoeal inflammation, irritating injections, calculi in the bladder or kidnies, piles, and other affections of the rectum, &c. may become, through the medium of increased action, excitement, or inflammation within the urethra, the remote causes of morbid derangement of the testicle."

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There is a state of the urethra, or unnatural diminution of its external opening, upon which Mr. Ramsden more particularly dwells, as being a fertile source of derangement in the membrane which lines that canal.

"In the majority of persons who apply for assistance under complaints of the testicle or of the urethra, which are not to be traced to gonorrheal inflammation, the urethra will be found to be more contracted at its orifice than at any other part of the canal. This state of its extremity is very different from the stricture which is sometimes situated immediately within the aperture, as well as from that appearance of this part, which is called the blind urethra.

"This diminution of the orifice of the urethra is occasioned by membranous fence, which partially closes up the lips of the extremity of the canal, it may sometimes be an original mal-formation; yet I apprehend it is for the most part produced by cohesion during infancy, and is analogous to the union we sometimes see between the prepuce and glans penis in the male child, and between the nymphæ in the female.

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Unimportant as this diminution of the extremity of the urethra may at first appear, many valuable facts may be deduced from it. It is the only instance, I believe, in which an immediate cause of spasmodic stricture in that canal can be demonstrated, by occasioning too strong and too frequent action of the adjacent muscles upon its diameter; at the same time, it affords an excellent illustration of the manner in which other causes, although more remote, may either predispose the urethra to stricture, or establish in its membrane a state of latent irritation. Mm 2

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