will be published in two or three weeks.

The scientific world will reap much from the talents and labours of this accurate and indefatigable naturalist.

Dr. James Currie's Pamphlet on prejudices commonly entertained against Mercury.

Dr. James Currie, one of the physicians of Guy's hospital, London, and lecturer on the theory and practice of medicine, has long promised the medical world a treatise on the Hepatic Function the purposes it serves in the animal economy; and the powerful influence which a disordered state of it exerts in exciting aggravating and modifying various forms of disease both general and local.

Dr. C. sometime in the last year published a corrected and enlarged edition of a pamphlet containing an "Examination of the prejudices commonly entertained against mercury, as beneficially applicable to the greater number of liver complaints, and to various other forms of disease as well as syphilis.

More facts may be expected in the promised work than have hitherto appeared on this subject; for there is perhaps not a disease, except only those which are the effects of a peculiar specific morbid cause, to which the body is liable, that the doctor does not refer to the liver, and the consequence of this is, that there is scarcely a complaint which he does not treat with some preparation of mercury.

He tells us in his pamphlet, that, "the opinions advanced in the treatise, soon to follow this little work, are not the offspring of youthful imagination, working on a few principles, that much of what he describes, he first experienced in his own person; and what was wanting to complete the outline, has been abundantly supplied by observations on others, and that with regard to the injunction of Horace, nonumque prematur in annum, has been twice fulfilled."

In a note to page 14, the doctor, after highly complimenting Dr. Cheyne on his treatise on hydrocephalus, thus expresses himself on that disease: "From the time I became a public

teacher on the practice of medicine, (now nine years) I have uniformly taught a doctrine with respect to this disease, which, like some other of my opinions, has been generally considered wild and visionary; it is, that acute hydrocephalus is seldom if ever an idiopathic disorder of that organ, in which its prominent symptoms and fatal consequences are so conspicuously displayed; but that it is a secondary and symptomatic operation on the brain, arising from an inflammatory erithism or irritation of the liver in consequence of that intimate sympathy which exists between these two viscera, at all stages of life, but especially during the infantine and puerile periods; and as a corollary from this, that although, at no time during the progress of the complaint are we to omit the use of means directed to the head itself as a measure of security, yet that the most successful plan is to take up the disorder in the early and probably the only curable stage as hepatitis, and treat it by leaches and blistering the right hypochondrium, and by calomel given in such doses as first to excite the secretion, and next to emulge the ducts of the liver."

Dr. C. does not think that necessarily any harm whatever follows the use of mercury, and not only admits to the full extent, that bad consequences are always owing to mismanagement, but says "to grant still more, like antimony, opium and every other active remedy, mercury would probably do little good, if it were not also capable of doing some harm !”

Mercury has been taxed with producing consumption. From the slightest observation, says Dr. Currie, we must see that this opinion is founded in error. "Without accusing the male youth of the present day of greater laxity of morals than those of former generations, it may be asked, how many arrive at the adult age without having had occasion to use mercury. But these are not -the victims of consumption." Continues the doctor, "Does not by far the greater number consist of females whose rank and character not only place them above all suspicion of such necessity, but who never took a grain of mercury in their lives?” Dr. C. derives a very powerful argument for the liberal use of mercury in hepatic diseases from the indiscriminate use of it in India for that complaint. "But it may be objected," he continues,

❝ that as liver complaints are comparatively rare in G. Britain, why should we have so much recourse to mercury?" "This is the very point on which I want to join issue, and I think I shall be able to prove (what daily observation is tending to confirm) that the liver is as often diseased in England as in India, though commonly not in the same mode, and certainly not in the same local conspicuous degree; and that, to the single circumstance of its being less obvious, is owing its having been so much overlooked; as with us, it far more frequently consists in derangement of function, than in change of structure; and is oftener shewn in symptoms that affect remote parts, than in those which refer directly to the liver itself as the cause."

There are some interesting observations on the use of mercury in cases of indigestion, which were for a long time, and are now generally referred altogether to the stomach. The usual remedies in such cases were tried without any good effect. "Mercury, however," says Dr. C. "under proper management, so far from lessening the already impaired appetite, or exhausting the diminished strength, has increased the former to a degree, which was even distressing to the patients, from the mouth being so tender as to prevent their indulging in solid food to the extent they craved for; and has so much improved the latter as to enable them to go through their ordinary business, with greater ease and alacrity than they had done for many months before; and these desirable changes, so far from being merely temporary, have continued."

We find also some interesting remarks on what are vaguely called nervous diseases, and anticipate much instruction and entertainment from the "Treatise."

Inflammatory Diseases.

General and topical bleeding. Query. Would it not be of use to follow it up immediately with strong stimulants ? It appears so in the external inflammation, as to the eye....Dr. Beddoes.

When Dr. Beddoes made this query he was not aware that in pneumonic inflammation in the thorax, veterinary surgeons pursue precise y the practice here suggested. Immediately after one copious bleeding, the sulphate of copper is given in large and repeated doses. This practice, apparently so contrary to all principle, is said to be completely successful, very few horses dying when thus treated; while the evacuating treatment is unfortunate in a much larger proportion. The rationale of this, if it can be said to have any, is, that after the vessels are excessively depleted, for the single abstraction of blood is enormous, a degree of tone or constriction is given to them by the sulphate of copper, which prevents congestion of blood again occur. ring in the lungs, or a serous effusion taking place.

Med. and Phys. Jour.

On tying the Saphena Vein.

The operation for the varicous saphena vein has lately received considerable improvements. The mode of operating formerly employed was too frequently followed by fatal results. The present method, the improvement of which consists in removing the ligature from the vein a few minutes after it has been applied, we are assured is always effectual to obliterate the canal of the vessel, and has not yet been succeeded by any untoward cir cumstance. We are informed that Mr. Freer of Birmingham has employed the operation thus modified, several times with Med. and Phys. Journal.

success.

Wind of Cannon Balls.

Mr. Ellis has published an interesting paper in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, "on the accidents ascribed to the wind of a ball." He has adduced many instances to prove that these accidents are not imaginary, as has been often supposed. Among the effects of the passage of a ball near an individual, are the tearing of epaulets and buttons from the clothes, producing extensive lividity of that part of the body near which the ball passed, causing a sudden or gradual blindness, fracturing the

bones to a thousand pieces without tearing the skin. The following is an instance of its most singular and violent effects. At the siege of Bassain, near Bombay, in the year 1780, a sepoy, who was placed in the trenches to look out for shot, was too late in dipping; and a shot in consequence knocked off his turban into the trench behind him. The sepoy jumped down to pick it up. A surgeon, who happened to be near the spot, immediately went to him; but found on examination that the head was not in the least touched by the ball. From the state of the pulse, however, the surgeon deemed it proper to send the man to the hospital; and though no external injury could be discovered, he died in 48 hours after. The officer who was in the trenches at the time, thinks he heard it said, that the surgeon examined the sepoy's head after death, and found an extravasation of blood. Mr. Ellis seems to think that electric or other similar matter existing in the air, may be accumulated or developed by the motion of a cannon ball in a quantity adequate to produce the extraordinary effects ascribed to the "wind of a ball."

Hemorrhage, Herpes, &c.

Mr. John Ring, a surgeon, well known from his frequent publications, has given in the pages of the Medical and Physical Journal a number of useful hints, the first of which may appear of doubtful utility to those who have not had experience of the application. The most powerful styptic, he tells us, that I have ever used, is powder of charcoal. In bleedings of the nose it may be applied by means of tents first moistened with water, and then dipped in this powder; but in slight cases it has answered by being taken like snuff. In other cases it is to be sprinkled on the part affected, and retained there by means of a compress. The use of the unguentum nitratis hydrargyri, ungt. acetitis plumbi, and ungt. subm. hydrargyri et ammoniæ or U. præc. albi in psoprophthalmia tinea, excoriations behind the ears and herpetic eruptions, is so common here, that we cannot attribute to those applications the merit of novelty. Mr. Ring does not inform us whether he has found it necessary to employ