and powers, cannot be expected from our fober and unenlightened pens.

And yet thefe and the Author's former and future publications, it feems, contain a SYSTEM, that will fpeedily astonish the world, by its ftupendous magnitude and power, In the concluding paragraph of the firft of these two tracts, the fond father of it accufes us of having exerted our weak endeavours to ftifle this young HERCULES in its cradle; and gives us fair warning to make quick difpatch, if we expect to fucceed in our desperate attempt to check the rapid growth of this ftrapping youngfter.-Hear what the Doctor himself fays on the subject. Our reprefentation might, perhaps, be thought exaggerated:

• These opinions,' fays he, will be confirmed by future publications, particularly by an Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Pulfe, and the Motion of the Arteries. But if the Reviewers are determined to deftroy OUR System in the bud, they should not lofe the prefent opportunity, as by length of time it may grow into so powerful a COLOSSUS, as to bid defiance at last to all the artillery of their genius.'

We appeal, on this occafion, to the judgment of the impartial Public; not doubting but they will acquit us of the dark defign here imputed to us by this unaccountable mortal. We have indeed more than once diffented from the Doctor's opinions, when we have understood them; and in particular acknowledge that, in March 1773, justly provoked to see the rays of light violently twisted and jostled out of their natural and lawful courfe by this bold innovator, we ftoutly defended the good old laws of vifion, against the Doctor's New Syftem of seeing :—but from dates and other circumftances, it is evident that this cannot be the growing COLOSSUS above referred to ↑.

• It was well judged in the Doctor to give the skin, that humble covering of the body, the high founding title above mentioned. The phrenic centers, and even the brain, it feems, yield in power to the exterior organ.'

†The Doctor breeds fo faft, and brings forth fo many new fyftems and theories, that we protest we have overlooked a capital one indeed, promulgated in this very effay. Here, if we rightly comprehend him, he demolishes the old Harveian circulation, dethrones the heart-and portions out its hitherto undifputed, univerfal dominion over the circulating fluids, into numerous principalities, under the government of the Spongiform fubftance of the cellulary-membrane,' difperfed over the various parts of the body. Thefe heptarchies, (though we know not their precife, number) are the principal agents in the circulation, and each part of the body has a circulation pe. culiar to itself—Where will this man ftop!-If he be fuffered to go on long at this violent rate, we must e'en shut our books, and all go to fchool again:a mortifying ftep, to be obliged to take at our age!

It appears, however, that by our rough treatment of the new optical fyftem, we had nearly, though unwittingly, deprived the world of the prefent new Theory of the Human Senfations. We will recite the alarming tale in the Doctor's own words.

Every thing, it seems, was prepared for the promulgation of the new theory, when a friend brought him the Monthly Review for March 1773, to let him fee how feverely he had been citic fed, by the learned body of the Monthly Reviewers.'

• Tortured and vexed, I was going to throw all this theory 'into the fire, if it had not occurred to me, that two heads are of tentimes better than one.Pleafed with the thought, I called up my cookmaid, and bid her run her eye very carefully over the whole.the very identical eye, we fufpect, in which the Doctor faw the erect image See the aforefaid Review,' page 238, where he flyly calls it the eye of a friend] She liked it, and approved of my publishing Pantun at

Under the fanction then of her great authority I boldly venture once more to request your great decifton: I flatter myfelf I shall pleafe you, for though my cookmaid is not fo learned as a Reviewer, fhe is as excellent an old woman as the beft

What could induce this wench to relish the Doctor's theory, where the principally derives our pleasurable and other fenfations from the Midriff, is best known to herfelf. But are thefe, Dr. Berdoey your clinical and practical obfervations, that you promited us when you commenced Author †? Viewing yourself in your cookmaid's pupil and communing with her on the true feat of pleasurable fenfations ? Fie upon you By way of fcreen, you would pafs her off to us and the world for an eld woman, like ourselves. But a fet of elderly matrons, as we are, are not to be fo taken in She is a young wanton baggage, we'll warrant her, and no better than the thould be.

+ See M. Review, vol. xlyi April 1772, P. 443

Thefe, fays the Doctor, p. 35, are produced by all thofe caufes that forcibly enchain us in the poffeffion of those objects which may be called the idols of human happiness.' Here we have the fair fex plainly defigned. She liked it, fays the Doctor. They are his very words. See above.

ART. XV. Chirurgical Obfervations and Cafes. By William Bromfield, Surgeon to her Majefty, and to St. George's Hofpital. Illuftrated with Copper-plates. 8vo. 2 Vols. 145. Cadell. 1773

ANY new, pertinent, and ufeful remarks are contained in this work, which is however unneceffarily enlarged by a confiderable number of trite and infignificant obfervations, that seem to answer no other purpofe than that of fwelling the matter, which might with cafe have been contained in one ve

lume,

lume, into two. The Author feems to have entertained the fame apprehenfions with Martial, that his works would be in danger of being loft, were they not eked out, and expanded into a larger bulk, by the addition of supplementary materials,— no matter of what quality:

འ

Edita ne brevibus pereat mihi charta libellis,

• Dicatur potius τον δ' απαμειβομενος.

De Libro Suo Lib. i. Epigr. 46. The difpofition of this matter likewife is frequently fuch as to incline the Reader to fuppofe that the Author had emptied his whole common-place book, and given its heterogeneous contents to the Public, juft as the different articles flood there; without felection, and with very little regard to form, language, or method. Of this inexcufable inattention to order we fhall give the two following very ftriking instances.

In the 2d chapter of his firft volume, where the Author in the title of it profeffes to treat of Amputation, the Reader will, at the beginning of it, meet with an enumeration of some of the complaints that feem to indicate, or that require, the removal of a limb. From this fubject however he will foon find him fliding away to another, that bears indeed fome affinity to the operation; the nature, caufes, and figns of a mortification. He now begins to lofe fight of the original object, for he muft next accompany the Author ftarting into the doctrine of inflammation; difcuffing the various, theories that have been formed on that fubject, and finally propofing his own opinion. Having got over this litigated matter, the Author next treats of perfpiration. He then proceeds to the fea and the land fcurvy ; and from thence to the pox, where he gives us his fentiments on the powers of corrofive fublimate in venereal complaints. From thence he leads the Reader to Harwich, and treats of feabathing, and the utility of warm fea-baths, first proposed by himself about fifteen years ago. Returning once more to inflammation he sticks to it pretty closely, to the end of the chapter;-like Montaigne and Triftram Shandy, leaving his companion at leisure to look about him," at the end of it, for the fubject he first fet off with. After a paufe, the reader proceeds to chap. 3, where he finds him treating of Tumours; in chap. 4, of the Erysipelas; in chap. 5, of the Anthrax or Carbuncle. Here, and under this unpromifing title, he at length unexpectedly meets with a large number of obfervations or remarks, fome of them new and important, on the fubject of amputation; particularly on that of the arm at the articulation of the thoulder.

The next inftance of the neglect of order in this work, prefents us likewife with a fingular example of the want of a good understanding or correfpondence between its different parts. In chape 4, of thesadovolume, On Fractures, we were furprifed.

not

not to find our Author keeping pace at leaft with his cotempo-" raries, in the fimple and efficacious improvements that have been lately introduced into that branch of practice * At page 59, indeed, we have one tranfient glimpfe afforded us, in about four words, of a part of the new treatment; where in the cafe of a confiderable tumefaction of the limb, preventing its reduction, we are told that while the furgeon is ufing means to bring down the fwelling, as well as afterwards when he attempts the reduction of the broken bone, if the fracture is of the tibia or fibula, < the knee should be bent.' But throughout the rest of this chap ter, scarce a veftige of the improved practice is to be traced: on the contrary, we find the Author ftill retaining the use of plaifters, the endless circumvolutions of a long fingle-headed roller, and the leg box ;-parts of the inconvenient and noxious trumpery of our forefathers..

Proceeding onwards however to chap. 7, we are again, equally, furprifed to find our Author there not only warmly recommending the placing the fractured leg, for instance, in a bent pofi tion, in order to relax the mufcles, both in the cafe of fimple and of compound fractures, and not only during but after re duction-fuffering the patient to lie at his eafe, on his fide or otherwife, with his leg unconfined, on a foft pillow;-andftrongly approving the ufe of the eighteen-tailed bandage, on account of its evident advantages above the circular-but we find him likewife putting in his claim to a confiderable share in the discovery of thefe late improvements, and contending that 'it is now near 30 years fince he first recommended and inculcated them to his auditors, in his public lectures. This claim we fhall not contravert; but it is fingular, and certainly favours our idea of the Author's having huddled together the materials of the prefent work from his old and new common-place books; to find him obferving nearly a total filence with respect to certain modern improvements, in a part of his work where he is profeffedly treating of the subject to which they immediately relate: while in another part of it, he infifts on the great advantages derived from them, and contends for the honour of having long ago inculcated them.

Though the titles of the chapters into which this work is di vided, do not, as the Reader already perceives, every where accurately fpecify their contents; we fhall enumerate them, in order to give the Reader fome information concerning the fubjects that are treated of in these two volumes.

The firft is divided into fix chapters. In the firft, which has no title, the Author, on too flight grounds, in our opinion, re

• We have formerly given a popular account of thefe improvements, and their rationale, in our 40th volume, June 1769, p. 465. commends

2

commends the practice of repeatedly exhibiting Dovar's Powder, or a fudorific opiate, in concuffions of the brain; instead of fol lowing the common method of ufing evacuations by bleeding and purgatives, and making openings through the skull by means of the trephine.

Though we defigned only to give a bare tranfcript of the titles of the Author's chapters, yet the importance of the prefent fubject obliges us fo far to depart from this plan, as to animadvert particularly on a propofal to discontinue the prefent rational practice, of emptying the system in general by bleeding" and other evacuations, and of perforating the cranium, when there are fufficient grounds to believe that the brain, or its mem-' branes, are affected by the preffure or acrimony of a fluid extravafated there while we are advised to fubftitute, in the place of these means of relief, the exhibition of opiates, on fach flender, or, at least, dubious grounds as the following:

We are told, in the first place, that the common practice will! not always fucceed ;-that a certain Empiric, as our Author has been informed, had often given relief in injuries of this kind, by means of opium ;--that the practice of evacuating, &c. in the prefent cafe is founded' (as our Author erroneoufly infinuates) on our fixed idea of inflammation, which is fuppofed to be owing to obftruction, and to be kept up by a plethora;" but that inflammations are frequently caused by fpafms, and opium is the most likely remedy to take off fpafm ;-and finally that the Author had ufed this remedy to many without injury; and that of four cases in particular, here related, in which it was exhibited, three terminated happily.

It may however be objected that toward the latter part of the preceding fummary, we have not done juftice to the Author's propofal; or given, in its full ftrength, the fubftance of the following paragraph; which we shall therefore transcribe.

I cannot fay, fays Mr. B. that I ever knew any one the worse for taking this anodyne fudorific, though I have given it.. to hundreds; but, on the contrary, patients, labouring under the symptoms of concuffion, were by this method recovered, and, two in particular with fractures of the skull, without the operation of the trephine being performed.'

Here the Reader is firft told that the medicine has been given, with fafety, to bundreds. It may firft be asked, to how many hundreds, and ftill more properly, what were their ailments? Were they flight colds, with running at the nofe-or fractures of the skull, attende with concuffion -Not the latter certainly; for in the next member of the fentence, where the Author particularly names fymptoms of concuffion,' the indefinite term, patients, only is employed, without the moft diftant hint of number; though it is now palpably on the decline. And,

laftly,