are often serviceable in the latter diseases, will produce little or no benefit in the saturnine pains. The small relief obtained by common modes of treatment, or even the injurious tendency of them, if pushed too far, are circumstances which may give an attentive observer an insight into the nature of these pains, and excite his suspicions of their cause, if he were previously uninformed of it.' P. 39, &c.

But though the bowels are not particularly affected, it is difficult to conceive that the perpetual introduction of a deleterious poison can be unattended with pernicious consequences. The information, however, to be gained on this subject from medical writers is very scanty and imperfect. It is commonly acknowledged as one of the parents of chronical and lingering diseases; it has been supposed to operate as a slow poison; and it has even been asserted to have been made subservient, in some countries, to such nefarious purposes. But as the genuine and peculiar symptoms of such diseases have not been hitherto described, they can be discovered only by a careful and original observation. Dr. L's. experience has not enabled him to point out any precise diagnostic symptom, or train of symptoms, by which saturnine diseases may be certainly distinguished. Still there have been found some very strong points of resemblance in the cases which have occurred: insomuch that the author regards it as by no means difficult to detect the operation of the poison, and in consequence to cut off the source of mischief.

But notwithstanding that in very numerous examples the deleterious quality of water, which has been tainted by the tubes through which it has been conducted, or the cistern in which it has been kept, is sufficiently obvious, it is allowed that the great majority of those who use them receive no injury so sensible and well marked as to be referred with certainty to the poison of lead as its specific cause. This apparent salubrity is ascribed to the great slowness of its operation, and the very minute quantities of the metal which are taken up; so that in most cases, it rather co-operates with other morbific causes than produces any distinct and peculiar disease, and is to be esteemed a depressing and sedative power, which is in constant action, but of which it is not very easy justly to appreciate the effects.

Such are the sentiments of the writer on the particular object of these Researches. They are illustrated by a va riety of cases, the greater part of them original. One we are pleased to see sanctioned by the name and the authority of the venerable Sir George Baker, whose labours in this department of medical science are so much esteemed.

The more common and general affections which are attributed to water contaminated by lead, are pains of the sto mach; these are often referred to the sternum, and very commonly they seem fixed between the shoulder-blades; in females the abdomen is apt to swell, and it becomes permanently distended, as in tympanitis; the digestive powers are destroyed; there is a general laxity of all the muscular fibres; the body becomes emaciated; the heart is affected with irregular palpitations, which are quite distinct from the palpitation excited by organic disease; the respiration is contracted and often asthmatic; the voice feeble; the complexion sallow and cadaverous. These subjects are rarely feverish; their pulse is commonly slow and feeble, and if any fever accompanie's their disorders, it is low and obscure. Saturnine colic and subsequent palsy have been observed, but they must be deemed rare occurrences.

All the cases related do not appear to us of equal weight, or equally adapted to prove the point intended to be esta blished. But it is at the same time fair to observe, that in one or two instances, the hypothesis is proposed rather as a reasonable conjecture than advanced as an established truth. We select the following cases in which the symptoms were somewhat uncommon.

'Cases VII, and VIII. In the spring of the same year, (1801). two of the children of this family, the elder about seven, the younger five years old, were attacked about the same time with a disorder in the respiration, exactly similar in each. The elder hap pened to be removed very soon to another house, and the disease quickly disappeared. But it continued to affect the other several months. The respiration was performed with a croaking sound, like a slight degree of the croup, and as if the passage of the air through the glottis was obstructed. At times the action of the heart appeared to be very irregular; but from so young a subject, a distinct account of his feelings could not be expected. The countenance was pale, and the health and strength a good deal impaired. Repeated emetics were administered, and many medicines tried, but without giving any effectual relief. At length he removed with his father to the west of England, where the disorder wore off, without the aid of medicine, in no great length of time. But thoughi he has been without complaint for more than a twelvemonth, his countenance did not acquire the appearance of health tili the close of 1802.

It is very observable, that this child, during the course of the disease I have described, was also afflicted with ophthalmia in each eye. The inflammation was of that indolent species which would have been termed scrofulous, This resisted likewise all the usual

applications, but it disappeared with his other complaints, and has not recurred,'

That lead may be dissolved in common water, but in such a form of combination as not to be discoverable by the usual chemical tests, Dr. Lambe has demonstrated; for he pro cured a globule of lead from water, on which these tests had been tried: that water so impregnated may be the source of saturnine diseases, and of some of those anomalous disorders which affect weakly people, is certainly very probable from some of the cases which he has adduced. But we can. not but consider, that when the inind has laboured hard or Jong in the investigation of any subject, it perhaps is not in the nature of things but that it should receive some bias to wards its own favourite system. Thus the purity of truth is corrupted by preconceived opinions, facts are twisted into a constrained agreement with these opinions, vague resemblances are enlisted as decisive arguments, and a system is built up corresponding chiefly with the prejudices or the fancy of the author. We do not say that this is the case with Dr. Lambe's hypothesis, which is supported by very decisive chemical analyses, and by some striking and probable instances. We wish however to warn this learned physician, against pushing his favourite hypothesis too far. In some of his instances he has certainly done this, to the disadvantage of his book. His system in itself is of sufficient importance to interest every philosophical enquirer; he has supported it ably, and we would recommend him to mature it, by patient and persevering industry, rather than by any forced constructions, to attempt to break into the secrets of nature, with violence and precipitation. (To be continued.)

ART. XL-Elements of Self-Knowledge, intended to lead Youth to an early Acquaintance with the Nature of Man by an Anatomical Sketch of the Human Frame, a concise View of the Mental Faculties, and an Enquiry into the Genuine Nature of the Passions. Compiled, arranged, and partly written by R. C. Dailas. Esq. Second Edition. Octavo. pp. 363. Crosby. 1506.

MR. DALLAS, the compiler, arranger, and author of this volume, is a very terrible personage. Our unfortunate friends, the British Crities, have fallen under his displeasure, and they are exhorted or commanded to discharge from their

service the impudent writer who has ventured with profane hand to arraign the chastity of this jumble of the sciences. We verily tremble with apprehension as we approach the den of the lion, bestrewed with the spoils of our brethren, and know not whether we can assume courage to enter into its recesses, though tempted by the promised beauties of the structure. But we must leave our fellow-labourers in the divine art of criticism to defend their own errors, if they have committed any, and proceed ourselves to the task of investigation, dangerous as it may be.

This work, then, consists of three parts, of which the first. regards the anatomy of the human body; the second contains a view of the mental faculties; and the third, an enquiry into the passions and their deviations, as Mr. Dallas calls them. The object of the publication is to give women, children, and other ignorant people, some knowledge of themselves, and we are therefore entitled to demand of it to be concise, perspiIf it turns out to have these cuous, accurate, and delicate. properties, we promise Mr. Dallas to commend his performance, even if nobody else should have that goodness.

At the beginning, Mr.Dallas, quoting a celebrated author, defines man to be an animal endowed with reason; though a little further on he seems to be of opinion, that our species is sufficiently distinguished from the brutes by the passion of love, of which the latter know nothing. We are far from questioning the ingenuity or truth of this, or indeed of any of Mr. Dallas's remarks; we are duly sensible of the danger of that procedure. But we can assure that gentleman that his observation is not original, for we were favoured many years ago with the perusal of a work on the nature of the humani mind, of which the introductory sentence was, man is superior to the other beasts inasmuch as he loveth woman.' It is clear that Mr. Dallas has been very uncandid in this instance, in not referring to his authority.

Having, at length, fairly settled what a man is, with nearly the same success as the Grecian philosopher, who defined him to be a two-legged unfeathered animal, and had a plucked hen sent him for his pains, with a request to know if that was a man; we next come to the corporeal frame; which we are informed is a collection of vessels disposed to form certain parts of different figures for different uses.' We dare not start any exceptions to this as a definition, though really we almost had imagined that some allusion was meant to the water-pipes of the New River Company, which we erroneously thought at first sight to be a collection of vessels (i. e. pipes, as Mr. Dallas also understands by the word)

so disposed as to form certain parts of different figures, (as great and small pipes in all shapes and combinations,) for different uses (as kitchen cisterns, water closets, &c.) We confess, we are no great anatomists, but did not know before: that all the body consisted of vessels: we must treasure the remark; we may not meet it again. Muscular fibres and nerves are accordingly stated as wholly consisting of minute blood-vessels.

Mr. Dallas is very successful in giving a view of the causes of the various parts of our frame. From this he proceeds to the brain, to which, he only allows two membranes, though three are usually enumerated. We'really forgot our critical gravity for a moment, at Mr. Dallas's whimsical account of the origin of the names of these coverings, one of which, the pia mater, he says is so called, because it folds the brain as a good mother folds her child : the other, the dura mater, we presume, is a kind of a stepmother, no better than she should be, and the cause of great vexation to our unfortunate sensoriums. The anatomy of the organs of sense is afterwards explained, neither very luminously nor always accurately, but probably sufficiently so for general readers: though whatever is learned even by the veriest tyro, or person who views the body of man merely as a philosophical curiosity, ought unquestionably to be accurate in the minutest particulars stated. Completeness may sometimes be dispensed with, but accuracy never. Proceeding in his plan, Mr. Dallas describes various parts of the body with laudable propriety, and informs us that new-born children have always milk in their breasts, and that grown men may themselves occasionally give suckwhen excited to do so by a vehement desire. Thus milk, it seems, is a more common com modity than the vulgar imagine, and Virgil had greater reason than the learned have credited, to talk of milking the he-goatstwice in an hour. The subject of the organs of speech is elucidated in a pithy sentence, the lungs furnish air out of which the voice is formed; and the mouth, when the voice is formed, serves to publish it abroad,' as the song goes, abroad or at home, or alone in a crowd. However, this publication is not made after the fashion of a newsman's horn, but the sounds are modified into articulation, as is very sensibly explained by Mr. Dallas. A conglomerate gland is here affirmed to be composed of a number of conglobate glands, the use of which is not known, but by soine mystery the use of the compound is. Upon the whole, the compendium of anatomy is not without its merits; if it does not rise to the top, it is also far removed from the bottom of the scale of