attachment occafions to the operator and the patient. Our author proposes immediate delivery, while Mr. Rigby, whom we have more than once mentioned, in our Journal, with refpect, advises us to wait till the os uteri is fó far relaxed, in confequence of the evacuation, as to admit of dilatation with little force. Dr. Douglas fupports his opinion, by insisting on the danger which will be the confequence of a confiderable hæmorrhage, and the ease with which even lacerations of the cervix uteri commonly heal. After maturely ballancing the inconveniencies of each fide, we own that we ftill think Mr. Rigby's method preferable: though, from the delay neceffary, it will never be a favourite practice with either the patient or the practitioner. The debility, from hemorrhage, is foon restored: the confequences of irritation, even if no laceration should happen, and it will probably feldom occur, are fometimes difagreeable. We believe Dr. Douglas's mode is the most common at prefent; and we have not found it frequently dangerous.

VII. An Account of an Aneurifm of the Aorta. By Samuel Foart Simmons, M. D. F. R. S.-The symptoms, in this hiftory, are very clearly related; and they will be of great fervice in diftinguishing between an aneurism of the aorta, and an hydrothorax; for these two diseases, though effentially different, yet frequently produce fymptoms very fimilar. The aneurism was at the anterior part of the curvature of the great artery.

VIII. An Account of a fatal Vomiting, apparently brought on by a Disease of the Kidneys. By the late William Keir, M. D. This was an enlargement, rather than a disease, of the kidney, yet it contained fome irregular calculi,' which have, in other inftances, frequently occafioned vomiting. The distinction was, in this patient, more difficult, as the fwelling occafioned a tumour externally, which, from its fituation, feemed to be an accumulation of fæces in the colon. Our author's reflections are judicious, and worth preferving.

The facts which I have stated admit of useful application. ift. They afford a proof of a clofer and more extenfive fympathy between the kidneys and the ftomach than has generally been thought to fubfift. It has long been known that the fomach may be much difordered by difeafes of the kidneys, attended with inflammation or with violent pain; but that a state of thofe organs, accompanied with neither, fhould produce a fimilar effect, has not, I think, been commonly imagined.

zdly. They may help us to diftinguish between diseases of the intestinal canal, and those of the kidneys. If fickness and violent vomiting fhould occur without pain or any fign of inflammation, the cause of the disease, even if constipation fhould.

attend,

attend, might with more reason be fought for in the kidneys than in the inteftines; because the nature and the structure of the inteftines hardly admit of the fuppofition, that a caufe confined to them should occafion violent vomiting, without affecting the part where it is feated in a violent manner; which it can hardly do without producing a painful contraction, or an inflammatory ftate; and I know no inftance of an obstinate vomiting, produced by a diforder of the inteftines, without pain; whereas we are now poffeffed of two cafes, where vomiting appears to have been fupported with uncommon obftinacy, by a difeafe in the kidneys, without any mark in them either of pain or inflammation.'

IX. On the Efficacy of the Spiritus Vitrioli dulcis, in the Cure of Fevers. By James Carmichael Smyth, M. D. F. R. S. Dr. Smyth confines the ufe of this remedy chiefly to jail or hofpital fever, and thinks that it acts as a cordial and diaphoretic. He allows it to be one of thofe remedies, whofe operation is not fo decided as to establish its ufe without controverfy; but thinks that he has found it advantageous. We fhall hint to Dr. Smyth, that the cafes, particularly defcribed, are of one epidemic; and the remedy was ufed nearly at a time when the crifis might have been reafonably expected. The days, in his table alfo, are not thofe of the fever, but of the employment of his medicine, which occafions an ambiguity, and gives a more favourable appearance of fuccefs. But fince the publication of this volume, the few trials we have been enabled to make with it, confirm our author's opinion.

X. A Cafe of Ptyalifm, apparently occafioned by a diminished Secretion of Urine. By Samuel Daniel, M. D.This is another inftance of the facility with which nature fupplies the want of an accustomed evacuation; and it is no very uncommon one, in confequence of the use of mercury, though in the prefent cafe it had not been previously employed.

We fhall finish this volume in another article. Many of the effays have entertained and instructed us; if the authors proceed with the fame spirit, they will deferve encouragement; but they should be cautious in the choice of their materials. A volume may be easily filled; but they should aim alfo at rendering it valuable, nor fuffer the fancied luftre which private friendship may diffuse to claim a preference due only to accurate obfervations and judicious reasoning.

Expe

Experiments and Obfervations on a new Species of Bark, fhewing its great Efficacy in very small Dofes: alfo a comparative View of the Powers of the Red and Quilled Bark. By Richard Kentish, M. D. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Johnson.

IF

F we confider this work as defigned to introduce a new fpecies of bark, it is highly commendable; in other refpects, it is liable to exception. To the attention and industry of Mr. Wilson, an able apothecary in Henrietta-street, the world is much indebted for afcertaining the properties of this particular species, which, for various reafons, deserves our attention. The Caribbean bark, of which a defcription is given in the Sixty-feventh Volume of the Philofophical Tranfactions, p. 504, is found both in the Leeward and Windward Islands: in fome of them the tree which produces it is common. Its qualities are bitterness and aftringency in an extraordinary degree; but it is not in the fame degree antiseptic. In the ufual doses of bark, it proves emetic and laxative: in smaller ones, the effects of the common officinal are obferved, without any very inconvenient addition of the other qualities. If future experience should fupport the observations of our author, it will prove a valuable addition to the Materia Medica, and will hold a middle place between the Peruvian and Cascarilla bark. We know not whether we have already mentioned the fact, but it is not new, though it occurs in this work, viz. that the cincona officinalis is found north of the Equator, in a very convenient fituation for exportation; therefore our fupply of the ufual remedy will neither be fo fcanty or fo precarious as it has hitherto been.

A great part of this pamphlet confifts of experiments to afcertain the difference between the quilled and the red bark. Dr. Kentish prefers the former, becaufe it contains a greater quantity of the aftringent principle, which is extracted by water, while the latter abounds chiefly in a bitter one, contained in a refinous fubftance. We could fill pages with dif cuffions on this fubject; but, after all our labour, they would be of little value our author is yet young from the schools, and argues plaufibly, but inconclufively. The bark is compounded by nature, and its feveral ingredients, combined, produce a given effect. They may be bitters, aftringents, or any others; but we are at least certain that we are unable to produce fimilar effects from any combination of thefe qualities: confequently there is little foundation for any reafoning on the nature of the feparate principles. Again, if his arguments were just, the cold infufion should be the most active preparation

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of the bark; which is not true. We allow that it is frequently the most convenient, though it is the weakeft. The fubftance holds the highest rank; next to it come the watery and spirituous extracts combined, as in the last edition of the Edinburgh Difpenfatory; for in this form we approach nearest to the fubftance of the other preparations, the decoction is ftronger than the infufion. The tincture is a partial preparation, as the spirit extracts only one portion of the bark, and is feldom ufeful, but as an addition to the infufion. These are the dictates of experience rather than reasoning; to come nearer to the point, we can adduce the most respectable teftimonies of the fuperior utility of the red bark, without adding our own. We probably, at first, attributed too much to it, for the reafons mentioned in the introduction to our review of the Medical Communications; but, after every allowance, it will still remain the more powerful medicine.

The language of this little work is not incorrect; but it is elevated beyond the calm perfpicuity which fhould distinguish science and philofophy. Our author tells us, that Linnæus has inferted only one fpecies of cincona; but he should have looked into the laft editions, before he had rifqued an affertion so positive. He treats too of this fpecies as one scarcely, if at all, known in England; though it had been particularly defcribed in the volume of Philofophical Tranfactions before referred to.

On the whole, we have received fome information from thefe experiments, and recommend them, on that account; but they fhould be read with caution, and perhaps a little distrust.

An Effay on draining and improving Peat Bogs. By Mr. Nicholas Turner. 8.-vo. 35. Baldwin.

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'HE author of this Effay gives clear and explicit directions on a fubject little understood: if the chief part of his plan is not new, yet it comes under the fanction of experience, attended with fome additional illuftrations. Peat bogs are frequently called the mofs; and there are few who do not recollect the devaftation occafioned by the increafe of Solway Mofs, in the year 1771. The natural history of this furprifing phænomenon is ftill imperfect: the mofs proceeds by degrees, appearing like a spongy body, whofe pores are filled with a fluid; in reality, it is a femi-fluid mafs, confifting of a peculiar vegetable, whofe fibres are matted together, and the interstices filled with water and earth. It advances flowly; but its force is irrefiftible: hedges, trees, and dif

ferent

ferent bodies, in its progrefs, yield to this feemingly infigni ficant power: corn-fields, meadows, gardens, and plantations, are covered by a fatal enemy, and present only a dreary and melancholy wafte. To drain the fuperfluous water, and to destroy this incroaching vegetable, is an arduous tafk; yet human ingenuity has effected greater changes. We think that our author's plan will, in many cafes, fucceed; and if it is not always fuccessful, it will fuggest some ufeful schemes in thofe inftances where it has failed. Bogs, as he allows, are indeed of very different kinds.

Mr. Turner apologises for his deficiency in chemical knowlege; and we fhall again remark the almoft abfolute neceffity of this science to every rational hufbandman. The useful parts are few, eafily learned, and the neceffary experiments can be made or repeated with very flight apparatus. Our au thor's mistakes are, in a great degree, owing to unfaithful guides; for, except Dr. Fordyce's very concife treatise, we have fcarcely a work in English which can be implicitly followed. Why is Bergman's treatife Sur les Terres geoponiques' not yet tranflated? We fhall infert the following defcription of peat from this author:

On diffecting a piece of peat, its foliage will be found distinct and lateral: as a proof, take a piece from within a foot of the furface, and on a moderate compreffion, you will find it lofe eight-tenths of its thickness; but use the same force in lateral preffure, it being against the grain, it will not lose one-fourth. Befides roots and flaggy leaves, there is also now and then a thick and hollow tube, in which the lateral leaves are inferted, compofed of very ftrong rigid fibres that run down perpendicularly; thefe are fo ftrong as to make the tube impervious to the water, and are for the conveyance of air to fuch part of the bog as is within about four feet of the furface; after that depth I am inclined to think vegetation ceafes, from the peat that is dug there being more compact and weighty, and containing no roots or air tubes: as there is ever a fermentation in the change of all bodies from an entire to a corrupted ftate, fo it is probable, in this cafe par ticularly, from the peat being darker, that there is a gentle one fufficient to diffolve the tubes and rooss, but that the want of heat, and the admiffion of the external air, together with the acceffant qualities of peat, retard a further putrefaction."

The antifeptic property of peat, for the wood which has laid for ages in a peat bog remains almoft entire, is attributed to the bitumen, and to the acid which it contains. Our author thinks that the mofs flourishes chiefly in bituminous waters. The oil arifing in the analyfis of peat feems to be Vol. LIX. Jan. 1785.

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chiefly