or twice a day. Onions, garlic, slight chalybeates. Issues. Leeches applied once a fortnight or month to the hemorrhoidal veins to produce a new habit. Emetics after each period of hæmoptoe, to promote expectoration, and dislodge any effused blood, which might by remaining in the lungs produce ulcers by its putridity. A hard bed, to prevent too sound sleep. A periodical emetic or cathartie once a fort-. night.

Also his plan of preventing miscarriages.-Some delicate ladies are perpetually liable to spontaneous abortion, before the third, or after the seventh, month of gestation. From some of these patients I have learnt, that they have awakened with a slight degree of difficult respiration, so as to induce them to rise hastily up in bed; and have hence suspected, that this was a tendency to a kind of asthma, owing to a deficient absorption of blood in the extremities. of the pulmonary or bronchial veins; and have concluded from thence, that there was generally a deficiency of venous absorption; and that this was the occasion of their frequent abortion. Which is further countenanced, where a great sanguinary discharge precedes or follows the exclusion of the fetus.

M. M. Opium, bark, chalybeates in small quantity. Change to a warmer climate. I have directed with success in four cases, half a grain of opium twice a day for a fortnight, and then a whole grain twice a day during the whole gestation. One of these patients took besides twenty grains of Peruvian bark for several weeks. By these means being exactly and regularly persisted in, a new habit became established, and the usual miscarriages were prevented.

His opinion of extracting the cataract to remove blindness is so very unexpected, that unless it came from such a source it would scarcely obtain credit, so much has fashion to do both in medicine and surgery.

Cataracta is an opacity of the crystalline lens of the eye. It is a disease of light-coloured eyes, as the gutta serena is of dark ones. On cutting off with scissars the cornea of a calf's eye, and holding it in the palm of one's hand, so as to gain a proper light, the artery which supplies nutriment

to the crystalline humour is easily and beautifully seen; as it rises from the centre of the optic nerve through the vitreous humour to the crystalline. It is this point, where the artery enters the eye through the cineritious part of the optic nerve, (which is in part near the middle of the nerve,) which is without sensibility to light; as is shown by fixing three papers, each of them about half an inch in diameter, against a wall about a foot distant from each other, about the height of the eye; and then looking at the middle one, with one eye, and retreating till you lose sight of one of the external papers. Now as the animal grows older, the artery becomes less visible, and perhaps carries only a transparent fluid, and at length in some subjects I suppose ceases to be pervious; then it follows, that the crystalline lens, losing some fluid, and gaining none, becomes dry, and in consequence opake; for the same reason, that wet or oiled paper is more transparent than when it is dry, as explained in Class I. 1. 4. 1. The want of moisture in the cornea of old people, when the exhalation becomes greater than the supply, is the cause of its want of transparency; and which, like the crystalline, gains rather a milky opacity. The same analogy may be used to explain the whiteness of the hair of old people, which loses its pellucidity along with its mois

ture.

M. M. Small electric shocks through the eye. A quarter of a grain of corrosive sublimate of mercury dissolved in brandy, or taken in a pill, twice a day for six weeks. Couching by depression, or by extraction. The former of these operations is much to be preferred to the latter, though the latter is at this time so fashionable, that a surgeon is almost compelled to use it, lest he should not be thought an expert operator. For depressing the cataract is attended with no pain, no danger, no confinement, and may be as readily repeated, if the crystalline should rise again to the centre of the eye. The extraction of the cataract is attended with considerable pain, with long confinement, generally with fever, always with inflammation, and frequently with irreparable injury to the iris, and consequent danger to the whole eye. Yet has this operation of extraction been trum

peted

peted into universal fashion, for no other reason but because it is difficult to perform, and therefore keeps the business in the hands of a few empirics, who receive larger rewards, regardless of the hazard which is encountered by the flattered patient.

A friend of mine returned yesterday from London after an absence of many weeks; he had a cataract in a proper state for the operation, and, in spite of my earnest exhortation to the contrary, was prevailed upon to have it extracted rather than depressed. He was confined to his bed three weeks after the operation, and is now returned with the iris adhering on one side so as to make an oblong aperture; and which is nearly, if not totally, without contraction, and thus greatly impedes the little vision which he possesses. Whereas I saw some patients couched by depression many years ago by a then celebrated empiric, Chevalier Taylor, who were not confined above a day or two, that the eye might gradually be accustomed to light, and who saw as well as by extraction, perhaps better, without either pain, or inflammation, or any hazard of losing the eye.

As the inflammation of the iris is probably owing to forcing the crystalline through the aperture of it in the operation of extracting it, Could it not be done more safely by making the opening behind the iris and ciliary process into the vitreous humour? But the operation would still be more painful, more dangerous, and not more useful than that by depressing it.

[To be continued.]

LV. On Vaccination. By RALPH BLEGBOROUGH, M.D. To Mr. Tilloch.

SIR,

PERCEIVING that you are impartial, at least on the subject of vaccination, I send you the following letter, already sent to the editor of another work, but which I much fear he will not find it convenient to insert;

and remain yours, &c.

RALPH BLEGBOROUGH,

SIR,

To the Editor of the Medical Observer,

ON perceiving (in the tenth number of your Observer,) among the cow-pox failures and mischiefs which you are so kind as to favour the public with, the case of Mrs. Hawkins's daughter, of No. 4, Pleasant Place, Lambeth, and which makes the 40th of your list, I was a little surprised, as I had attended the child occasionally, and her parents frequently, during three years previous to her death, but had never heard that any part of her sufferings had been attributed to the cow-pox by her parents. She died of psoas abscess! Some time prior to her death, her father died of hydrothorax, and I have since occasionally been attending her mother in ascites. I mention these circumstances as no further important than to state that they gave me an opportunity of inquiring whether they had ever in the least blamed the cow-pox for her complaints; the mother says No, though some person, sent by Dr. Moseley, wished to convince them it was so unless indeed it may be considered important to contemplate how far it was wonderful that a child of parents so unhealthy, should die of psoas abscess without the aid of the cow-pox.

Just as the circumstances of this case were passing my mind, Mr. Vaughan of Lambeth, the case of whose daughter makes your 69th, in number 12 of your Observer, came to desire I would call at his house, as the child in question had a slight eruption on the skin, but without complaint. On seeing her, I immediately wrote the following, which I desired Mrs. Vaughan (a sensible intelligent woman, who entered mightily into the joke,) to copy, and send to Dr. Moseley and Mr. Birch.

"SIR,-A case of small-pox has occurred after vaccination by Dr. Walshman, at No. 4, Pratt-street, Lambeth, (Mr. Vaughan's oil-shop,)-Perhaps you will like to look at it. I remain yours,

July 20, 1808.

"NURSE."

I took the child immediately to Mr. Young the surgeon of Lambeth, whom I found along with his friend Dr. Higgins without making them in the least acquainted with

my

my plan, I desired them to say what the eruption was. They both immediately declared it to be the chicken-pox. I desired the nurse to take the child in the course of the day to Dr. Walshman, who was to know nothing about what was going on. He declared the same thing. Mr. Foster, Mr. Key, and other respectable surgeons, saw the child; and, I believe, never saw a more well-marked case of chicken-pox. 'In consequence of Mrs. Vaughan's copies of my note, first came (as was expected) Mr. Lipscombe. Mrs. V.'s father knew Mr. Lipscombe at Warwick. He declared that it was not the small-pox; but that he had no doubt Dr. Moseley and Mr. Birch would say so. He was perfectly right, they said so sure enough; but they were not quite clear about it the first time they saw the child, while any one else might have judged of the disease; but when the spots had waned so that it was impossible any one, who might not have seen the child before, could judge what it had been-then indeed they grew bolder, and would have taken their oaths it was the small-pox.

Now, Mr. Editor, I wish to know who the other medical men are, who saw my little patient in the small-pox, besides Mr. Lipscombe, and particularly if Dr. Moseley and Mr. Birch are among them. I wish also to know who this Mr. Lipscombe is; and if he has any other wicked-propensities, besides this unmanly talent of frightening women, and men like women. You, sir, 1 observe, wish to bring the question of vaccination to an issue.-When you balance the account, pray do let this statement of facts go for its full weight. I remain, sir, yours, &c.

Nelson-square, September 18, 1808.

RALPH BLEGBOROUGH.

LVI. Project of an Institution for the Prevention and Cure of Pulmonary and other Disorders by Air of a warm and nearly equal Temperature. By a Correspondent, EXPERIENCE has demonstrated, that certain persons are affected with coughs and other complaints in the winter, but