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As our fair readers must burn with impatience to learn the fate of the unhappy Josephina, we beg leave to inform them that they may safely gratify their curiosity, for (as is our bounden duty) we have taken care to ascertain that the sentiments in this tale are proper, and the moral is good,

MISCELLANEOUS.

ART. 25.-Remarks on the Report of M. Chaptal to the Consuls, or former Government of France, with an Examination of the Claim of M. Guyton de Morceau to the Discovery of the Power of the Mineral Acid Gazes on Contagion. In a Letter addressed to Wm. Wilberforce, Esq. M. P. &c. By James Carm. Smith, M. D. &c. pp. 50. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Callow. 1805.

THESE remarks discover a truly liberal and moderate spirit, much more honourable to the author than all the merits of his own, or Dr. Johnstone's discovery, of the means of destroying contagion This controversy, or rather demonstration of Dr. J. C. Smith, res. pecting Chaptal's assumption of the discovery of the means of disinfecting air, by L. B. Guyton, formerly de Morveau of Dijon, wthink sufficiently decided. The facts are nearly thus, althouge Dr. Smith has either been ignorant of, or wilfully neglected them. The antiseptic power of acids having been long known to the chy mists. Sir John Pringle made some attempts to apply it to medicinal purposes in 1750. Dr. Johnstone, it appears, used marine acid in 1756; from which period, the experiments of Watson, Macbride, Alexander, Priestley, and Black, tended to develope more completely the nature and influence of the acids. From Dr. Black's discoveries, about 1769, particularly that of fixed air, Morveau gleaned his Moyens in 1773, which he was afraid to call a discovery,. Jest his plagiarisms should be immediately detected. In 1780, the Academy of Sciences recommended the precaution proposed by Morveau of marine acid vapour: at the same period, Dr. C. Smith was making real experiments, not speculative verbal recommendations, at Wincester. Guyton, when chief of the Jacobins, and member of all the murdering committees, again unsuccessfully attempted to recommend his marine fumigation in 1794; and in 1795, Dr. J. C. Smith published his description of the jail distemper, recommending the use of this discovery of nitrous acid gas, as the best destroyer of contagion. This is a brief outline of the history and progress of the means of destroying contagion, which M. Chaptal, with his' usual indifference to national veracity or justice, claims as a French discovery, although he' well knows from whom Guyton Jearned the power of marine acid, and that no Frenchman ever imagined or heard of the power of nitrous acid gas, before the publica tion of Dr. J. C. Smith. The facts here adduced shew in the most unequivocal manner, that Dr. Johnstone was the first who applied the muriatic acid vapour to purify hospitals; and that Dr. J. C. Smith was likewise the first who discovered and used

nitrous acid vapour for the same purpose. Dr. S. asserts, that every unprejudiced chymist will readily admit that the nitrous is more practical than the muriatic acid; this is all he claims as his own discovery, and we see no reason to deny him that merit, however triting it may be in the present state of chymical knowledge.

ART. 26-Reply to Dr. James Carm. Smith, containing Remarks. on his Letter to Mr. Wilberforce, and a further Account of the Discovery of the Power of Mineral Acids in a State of Gas to destroy Contagion, By John Johnstone, M.D. pp. 281. 8vo. 5s. Mawman. 1805.

DRS. Johnstone and Smith are agreed in facts, but not in words. Dr. S. admits that the father of our author discovered the utility of marine acid, and Dr. J. 'thinks the discoveries of Dr. S. more remarkable for novelty in the means, (i. e. nitrous acid) than originality in the principle.' As to the originality of principle, we cannot allow that either Dr. J. or Dr. S. have any claim to a discovery, which was long previously made by the chymists, whose labours our disputants affect to be ignorant of, and to despise, although both are unquestionably indebted to them for the princi ples of their respective discoveries.

ART. 27-A Treatise on the Chymical History and Medical Powers of some of the most celebrated Mineral Waters; with practical Remarks on the Aqueous Regimen and Observations on the Use of Cold and Warm Bathing. By Wm. Saunders, M. D. F. R.S. and S. A. &c. Second Edition, enlarged." pp. 570, 8ro, Phillips and Fardon. 1805.

IN the Critical Review for October, 1801, there is an account of the first edition of this work, which is now considerably improv ed, with the addition of 'a chymical account of the chalybeate spring near Brighton, by Dr. Marcet.' We are not surprized that the good sense and practical knowledge displayed in the original volume, should have accelerated the demand for a new edition; and we rejuice in the reappearance of a work that so well combats the modern spirit of quackery, whether it be dressed in the garb of literary dissertations on particular cases, or adopt the system of posting bills in the streets. Dr. S. has stripped all our fashionable watering-places of their magical curative powers, to place them on the basis of reason and experience; and his observations tend to prove that, notwithstanding all that has been said and written by interested individuals, the cures performed at these places are more owing to the change of air, of habits, copious draughts of water, and medical temperance, than to the peculiar medicinal qualities of the wa

ters.

It is too hastily concluded that 'the composition of water has very little concern with the chymical knowledge of mineral waters."

We ought not to suppose from our apparent success in analyzing these waters, that the fluid produced by the chemical union of hydrogen and oxygen is merely a menstruum, in which all the other substances are but mechanically suspended. It is well known that there are tertiary as well as binary compounds, and that considering the slow and gradual process of nature, compared with the rapid one of our laboratories, we may presume that there frequently exists a chemical union between more substances than oxygen and hydrogen, in many of our natural mineral waters. To prove this fact by experiments, would lead us beyond our present limits; and we can only observe that the agency of water, in various processes of nature, must remain inexplicable, upon the supposition that its capacity is no greater than that of a simple menstruum. Chy mists and even physicians have also relied too implicitly on the supposed power of chymical affinities, subjected to the action of living organized matter. We know scarcely any thing of the efficient cause of animalization, or how vegetable is converted into animal matter by any fancied means of chymical affinity in the animal economy. The chymical pathology is perhaps no less injurious to the progress of the healing art, than the humoral was to philosophical observation. The minute and accurate attention to the effects of medicines, and the changes they produce in the living animal, has rendered the knowledge of English physicians an object of grateful admiration throughout the christian world; a circumstance which ought still more to stimulate their exertions in this department.

We regret that we cannot extract some of Dr. Marcet's very original experiments on the water of the chalybeate spring near Brighton, commonly called The Wick.' His application of succinat of ammonia, as a test to precipitate alumine from magnesia, will doubtless be found a very useful expedient in a delicate analysis, and is evidently much more convenient than boiling with potash. From the general result of Dr. M.'s numerous and apparently very accurate experiments, we learn that a pint of the Brighton chalybeate water contains 24 cubic inches, orth part of its volume, of carbonic acid gas, and 8.5 grains of a solid residue dried at the temperature of 160°. Of this residue 1.80 grains are sulphat of iron (equal to 3 grains of crystallized green sulphat;) 4.09 sulphat of line; 1.53 muriat of soda; 0.75 muriat of magnesia; 0.14 siliceous earth; and 0.19 loss. The temperature of this spring was at 54° when the thermometer stood in the airat 68°, and it is never known to freeze. Its specific gravity is 1001.08. The Wick water, when quite fresh, has a peculiar faint smell, not uncommon in ferruginous waters, and a strong, though not unpleasant chalybeate taste. Its spontaneous decomposition, even at the end of two months, only amounted to the slight deposition of a yellow sediment, and a diminution of its peculiar taste and smell. It appears that this, in com mon with most mineral waters, produces some degree of nausea and a sense of weight in the stomach, when taken cold; but if drunk moderately warm, no such effects take place. This is a somewhat

singular and important circumstance, as its analysis shews that it may be heated a little without losing any of its properties, provided it be done quickly, and in vessels which expose but a small surface to the action of the atmosphere.

On the general merit of this volume, it must be observed, that had Dr. Saunders, or his friend Mr. C. R. Aikin, subjoined an original analysis of the different waters, (at least of those in Great Britain,) to the accounts published by writers, many of whom lived long prior to the adoption of the delicate agency of tests and more accurate process of pneumatic chymistry, the work would have been of much greater importance to the speculative chymists, and certainly not less interesting to the practical physician. But the mere collection of incoherent experiments made by different experimentalists, and with very dissimilar apparatus, is too much in the modern encyclope dian style, not to merit the severest reprehension of candid criticism. ART. 28.-4 Treatise on the constructing and copying all Kinds of Maps. By Thomas Dix. 8vo. 3s. Scatcherd. 1805.

A CLEAR and easy introduction to the art of mapping. In the stereographic projection of the sphere on the plain of a meridian, the meridional arcs are treated as circular, and the length of their respective radii are calculated from three points in them. But might they not be represented as they really are, namely semi-ellip-es? and might not these be described by stretching a loose thread round two pins, fixed in the proper foci calculated from the proportion between the major and minor axes?

ART. 29.-Fables Ancient and Modern, adapted for the Use of Children from Three to Eight Years of Age. Adorned with Thirty-Six Copper-Plates. By Edward Baldwin, Esq. 2 vols. small 8vo. Hodgkins. 1805.

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FABLES have been long considered as the happiest vehicle which could be devised for the instruction of children in the first period of their education, The stories are short; a simple and familiar turn of incident runs through them; and the medium of instruction they employ are animals, some of the first objects with which the eyes and the curiosity of children are conversant. Yet these advantages are too often defeated by the manner in which fables are written.

In those before us, Mr. Baldwin uniformly represents himself as relating the several stories to a child, and expressed them in such language as he should have employed, when he wished to amuse the child and arrest his attention to the subject on which he was talking.

Those who have carefully applied themselves to the important task of education, will be aware that it is no easy matter to render the path to knowledge smooth and delightful, and to clothe their ideas in such an agreeable dress, as is proper to strike the minds of youth, and will be very ready to make favourable allowances, when Mr. Baldwin fails in his intention, which indeed be rarely does.

ART. 30.-Etymological Exercises on the Latin Grammar, in Two Parts. By the Rev. William Johns, 12mo. Longman. 1805,

THIS little book was a desideratum in school-teaching, and may be considered as taking much trouble from the master, and facilitat ing the improvement of the scholar. It were, however, much to be wished that in a future edition Mr. Johns would give the Latin words at the bottom of the page, as we think dictionaries are seldom given into the hands of scholars so young as those for whose use this work is designed.

ART. 31.--An ́Arithmetic Dialogue between a Master and his Pupil, &c. By W. Butterman. 12mo. Bingham. 1805.

WE see no material improvement in Mr. Butterman's Dialogues above other elementary books of arithmetic, unless it be in the arti❤ cle entitled, Purchasing funded property,' which is useful and clear. We were surprised to find no multiplication-table.

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ART. 32.-The Circle of the Sciences, consecrated by the Cross, &c. 12mo. Williams. 1805.

THE religious application of science must ever be approved, and a little school book pointing out the marks of design in the most familiar appearances of nature, is, we think, a desideratum. But to execute this judiciously, and with a freedom from all cant, requires. a certain little supernumerary science, which has been rightly called fairly worth the seven.' It is assuredly desirable that our physical studies be attended with a due regard to the truths of Revelation; but the immediate and direct end of them is to impress the mind with a belief of the existence of one Supreme Intelligence. When once a habit is formed of attending to the marks of design around us, and of inferring from thence the necessity of a designing mind, to use the words of Cowley,

Like Moses, we may then espy
In every bush the radiant Deity,

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