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nected with medicine, have been too practical to furnish a good ground. work for a medical education. The limited period of the courses does not permit the lecturer to enter at any length into the principles and theory of the science,—a deficiency which I have particularly remarked in the chemical department. Nothing can be of more importance to the medical student than a thorough acquaintance with the science of chemistry, which may be considered one of the corner-stones of a medical education. The late celebrated chemist, Dr. Murray, who wrote an excellent work on the Materia Medica, lamented to me the want of chemical and pharmaceutical knowledge, which he had observed in the medical men of England. But while I would strongly recommend to the student an exact and anxious attendance upon the best lecturers, I would caution him against wearying his mind by a too constant and unintermitted devotion. There was a person, during my stay in Edinburgh, who illustrated this advice in a remarkable manner. Having been possessed with an idea that every branch of knowledge might be acquired from lectures alone, he attended the various classes of literature, logic, mathematics, anatomy, chemistry, midwifery, surgery, natural history, moral philosophy, &c.; in short, there was nothing came amiss to him. He used to begin his daily labour at the earliest lectures delivered in the college, at eight o'clock, and continue his attendance throughout the whole day, with the intermission of about ten minutes at noon, when, he told me, he ran home to drink a pint of milk and to eat a little bread; after which he returned to his duties, and, God help him, poor fellow! he continued this through a session of six months' duration, attending twelve courses of lectures concurrently, beginning at eight in the morning, and listening till eight at night, when, as he told me, he used to go home to digest his learning and to get a little more bread and milk. I was very sorry for him, for he was evidently under a delusion. He had been at work in this manner for five or six years, and a pretty confusion of ideas he had in his head.

Amongst the various courses of medical lectures delivered at Edinburgh, none deserves greater attention from the pupil than the course on the practice of medicine delivered by Dr. John Thomson. The Doctor was an excellent teacher, and spared neither trouble nor expense in promoting the interests of his pupils. He was, I believe, the first 1 lecturer who introduced the representations by means of drawings, of the various diseases upon which he lectured. His collection of drawings is considered to be very valuable, both with respect to their execution and to the number of morbid changes they exhibit. I have heard from him some of the best and most learned dissertations on various diseases to which I had ever the pleasure of listening, and from which any medical man might derive benefit. I had much gratification, one day, at Dr. Thomson's, in meeting a very celebrated medical man— Beelard, the professor of anatomy at the Ecole de Medicine at Paris. He was a very unassuming man, as most able men are, unless they happen to be of small stature, like my old friend Fuseli and Mr. Edgeworth. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law, Dubois, an excellent surgeon, son of the medical attendant of the Empress Marie Louise. These gentlemen were making a professional tour and visiting the different large hospitals in this country; but I fear they found few

that equalled their own splendid and well regulated institutions. Beelard died a few years since, to the regret of every lover of the healing art, venerated and beloved by his pupils, who, in tears and sorrow, followed by many men of science anxious to testify their respect to his memory, carried the body of their beloved preceptor to the tomb.

It is much to be regretted that Dr. Thomson has never been selected to fill some of the medical chairs of the University. Perhaps the liberality of his principles may account for this exclusion. It has certainly generally happened that those chairs have been filled by persons who have had the good fortune to approve of all the measures of all Governments. One of these gentlemen amused me one day at a dinner party by saying, "that it was a singular thing, but he was paid for reading the newspaper."-" Ay," thought I, "you and yours are paid for more things than that, and for doing even less than reading the newspaper." "The fact is," said he, "that now, for many years, I have received the paper and cannot tell from whom it comes. For a long period I continued to put in my banker's hands a sum of money to pay for it, and now the amount of those sums pays interest more than sufficient to pay for the paper."--" Ab, ah!" thought I, "I could tell you all about it, and I would, only you are going to examine me next month, so I shall hold my tongue." The fact is, that at this time there were many papers thus disposed of to the adherents of ministers. In no place have politics run higher than at Edinburgh. During the period of the French Revolution the town was divided into two hostile parties, that did not even work with each other. The friends of liberty were looked upon as the promoters of discord, and were stigmatised as infidels in religion and enemies to their country. A late eminent professor of natural philosophy was so far led away by the fervor of his feelings, as to publish a volume in order to prove that there existed a conspiracy throughout Europe to overthrow all Governments! In later times, however, matters have been better managed, and the inhabitants of the Modern Athens, of all parties, now live on liberal and friendly terms.

During my residence in Edinburgh, I frequently talked with some of the most eminent men there on the chances of success in the profession. They all agreed that good fortune is the main ingredient. It matters very little how perfect may be your knowledge of medicine and your skill in detecting and curing diseases, if you have not an opportunity of bringing yourself before the public. The late famous Dr. George Fordyce never got into much practice; and because the late very learned Dr. Wells was not a man of polished manners, he was scarcely able to support himself, though recommended by Pitcairn, and countenanced by Baillie. It is curious to read the history of medical men and to observe their various fortunes. The great art of practising the profession with success (to yourself,) is never to doubt. Nothing strikes the patient so much as this species of juggling. If you doubt, he attributes it to your ignorance, and not to the complicated nature of his own disease. If you doubt, you will be dismissed, and some ignorant fellow takes your place, whose impudence never permits him to hesitate. Your patients must look up to you as the arbiter of life and death. Had Lord Eldon been a physician, he must have starved. I remember a young friend of mine told me, (and it was very true,)" that there is nothing like making an impression at first sight. For my part,'

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continued he, "I always say, Come, off with your coat, Sir, we must have some blood;' and then they think you are a clever fellow and know their complaint at once, whereas some persons will make a hundred inquiries before they do any thing, and the patient thinks what a stupid fellow he is!"* I was once driven to try this plan myself, and certainly I found it succeed wonderfully well. It happened that I was attending an old woman who was suffering from some complicated internal complaint. I inade many inquiries, and endeavoured to ascertain as well as I could the seat of her disease. She doubted, she said, that I did not understand the nature of her complaint. "Madam!" said I, “I know the nature of all complaints so well, that if your inside were laid out on this table before me I could even make you comprehend the nature of your complaint. The knowledge that we medical men have of all the various diseases is wonderful; and by putting confidence in me, you may rest assured that all that art can do will be accomplished." This had the desired effect. Another old woman standing by exclaimed, "Oh yes! I believe all he says!"—" Ay," thought I, "it is not surprising that the quacks carry the day." In my earlier days I have cured many a tooth-ache and pain in the face by the famous tractors. An old skewer is as good an implement as any other. When you use it to people of the better class, talk of animal magnetism, the vital principle, and galvanism; for the lower sorts, drawing out the pain will do. It may be laid down as a general rule that there are no bounds to the credulity of mankind. It is when persons of enthusiastic minds become themselves the dupes of their own doctrines, that we see such wonderful effects produced. What can be more curious than the history of Paracelsus or Van Helmont? Now this is what the former says of the nature of man, and of the knowledge that a physician ought to possess. "In man the physician discovers the motions of the stars, the nature of the earth, water, and air, all vegetables and minerals, all the constellations, and the four winds! A physician ought to know what in man is called the dragon's tail, the ram, the polar axis, the meridian, the rising and setting of the sun; and if he be ignorant of these things, he is good for nothing." From this author was derived the notion of an agreement between the principal parts of the human body with the planets, as of the heart with the sun, of the brain with the moon, and of the spleen with Saturn, &c. Our almanacks (thanks to the Useful Knowledge Society) are only now abandoning these absurdities. Upon one occasion Paracelsus so far forgot himself as to cure a noble canon of spasms in the stomach without making use of his usual jugglery. The patient, finding himself so easily cured, refused to pay the hundred French crowns which he had

My friend's remark reminds me of a passage in the Life of Lord Keeper North, in whose last illness the celebrated Dr. Radcliffe was called in." It was the opinion of the people about him (and the Doctor's desire,) who was the most afflicted man in the world,) that Dr. Radcliffe, then in the neighbourhood, should be called in which was done, not that his friends expected any benefit, but to satisfy some of the living who would not be convinced. The Doctor came, and by his lordship's bedside he asked him, I am sure, po less than fifty questions, which was a great fatigue and trouble to him, and to all that were in the room. The Doctor had his fee," &c. Life of Lord Keeper North, vol. ii. p. 142, new edition.

promised as the fee. Had Paracelsus in this case invoked the planets and talked of the elixir of life, he would have received his reward. Van Helmont was another of these enthusiasts. As Paracelsus had derided the ancient medical authors, so Van Helmont derided Paracelsus. "I searched into the works of Paracelsus and at first admired and honoured the man, but at last I was convinced that nothing but difficulty, absurdity, and error, was to be found in him."-" Thus tired out with search after search, and concluding the art of medicine to be all deceit and uncertainty, I said, with a sorrowful heart, Great God! how long wilt thou hold thine anger to mortal man, that thou hast not hitherto disclosed to thy schools one truth in the healing art? How long wilt thou deny the truth to a people confessing thee, needful in these days more than in times past? Is the sacrifice of Moloch pleasing to thee? Wilt thou have the lives of the poor fatherless and widows' children consecrated to thyself, under the most miserable torture of incurable diseases? Wherefore dost thou not cease to destroy so many innocent families through the ignorance of the physician?" Notwithstanding this rhapsodical nonsense, Van Helmont did much to advance the interests of science by his numerous experiments. One of his contemporaries speaking of him says, " Helmont was pious, learned, famous; a sworn enemy of Galen and of Aristotle. The sick never languished long under his hands, for such was the vigour of his practice that he always either killed or cured them in two or three days. He was chiefly called in to those who were given up by other physicians, and, to the great grief and indignation of the latter, frequently restored the patients to health."

SONNET.

OCEAN! I love to gaze on thee, for thou,
From earliest time the same, art ever new;
Such as Creation saw, we see thee now,
Yet daily change thine aspect and thy hue;
When storms of Winter bid thy waters roar,
As moving mountains fraught with Fate they seem;
In Summer's calm they gently lave the shore,
And Heaven shines brightly in thy limpid stream.
Thy billows represent the race of man,

A moment sparkling ere they pass away;
Thus he, frail creature of a short-liv'd span,
Flutters his hour, then sinks into decay:
Thyself eternal seems to our brief thought,

Like the great God who framed thee out of nought!

T.

SPORTING SCENES IN INDIA, NO. III.

Antelope-shooting.

"Come-let us go and kill us venison."-SHAKSPEARE.

"WHAT good fellow will bring home an antelope this morning?" was the intimation I usually received that this was looked for at my hands, as our group of disappointed hog-hunters broke up. Though there were those amongst us whose balls went, at the least, as true as mine, I had, by prescription, become honoured with the task of feeding the dogs, and such other epicures as relished venison. I loved the sport, and as it was my first love of the kind, I need not say how much. It had, however, with me, a deeper interest than that it claimed as a first impression, from its association with a material, and still unrequited service. Soon after my arrival in India, I was for some time under the care of a very good fellow, but a very indifferent surgeon, who had brought me as near the grave as he well could without putting me into it, by keeping me (as he was pleased to say) in a comfortable state with mild cathartics. An affair of duty obliged me to rally the little life I had left, and not only rescued me from his killing kindness, but restored my health considerably.* I was, however, still a wretched invalid, when another medical officer remarking the benefit I had derived from my professional employment, advised me to try if I should like shooting, and recommended antelope-shooting as the driest and safest. "If exercise and a pleasing occupation won't cure you, though I suspect (he used to say) they did more for Mr. Methusalem than calomel or colocynth, why come to me, and we'll try the medicine-chest." This simple remedy, co-operating with one other, completely re-established my health. This other was a letter enabling me to leave India; and knowing the effect it produced on me, it is not the dread of being tedious that shall prevent my endeavouring to impress on such as are similarly circumstanced, the wisdom of securing as soon as possible the means of leaving that country, should it become advisable. If these causes did not save my life, they at least rendered it comparatively happy. Until they began to operate (these medical phrases still haunt me), the time I passed in India was a term of mental and bodily suffering. The first impressions it made on me were most unfavourable, and I felt forced to remain in it. I suppose I confess no more than all feel, when I say that I have in me an innate impatience of restraint, which revolts when it can, and repines when it dares not revolt. The body sympathises strangely with the mind, and whilst I was unhappy I was unhealthy.

⚫ I know no specific for desperate cases like hard duty and soldierly occupation. I have every reason to believe my life was saved by it on this occasion, as I had a daily deputation to tell me I was committing suicide, and that a certificate to Europe alone could save me. I saw a very severe case of ague completely checked by the business of 1815, and heard of a distinguished officer who rescued himself from an hereditary rheumatism, by undergoing all the bad weather and hard usage of the retreat to Corunna. For "Gentlemen of England who live at home at ease," I believe a journey from London to Edinburgh and back-per heavy coach, is recommended. I remember remarking, in reading Brantome, how several of his worthies rise like giants refreshed from their sick beds, when the "gaudia certaminis" attract them. The Constable de Montmorenci was one-to be sure, Stuart's silver bullet left him little time for a relapse.

July-VOL. XXVI. NO. CIII.

C

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