illuftrious foever may be the names which have preceded in the very fame career. Notwithstanding, therefore, that the subject of the prefent volumes is one which has, perhaps, more than any other, engaged the notice of modern practitioners, we profefs to feel no repugnance at entering on a re-confideration of it, in company with any perfon qualified by extenfive experience and judgment to affift in determining fome important points refpecting it, which are ftill involved in doubt and controverfy:-but the nature of the fubject obliges us, however reluctantly, to avoid particulars in a mifcellaneous Review, which. is generally perufed by readers of every defcription.

Mr. Bell begins his work with the confideration of that leading question, Whether gonorrhoea and lues originate from the fame contagion. This he is inclined to decide in the negative, chiefly from the conviction occafioned by his own experience that the one does not produce the other. He is fenfible, however, that other perfons of great eminence have made contrary affertions :-but, as they allow thefe occurrences to be rare, whereas there feems no reason to suppose that they would not be frequent if they could happen at all, he chufes rather to account for them on the fuppofition that one kind of infection has been received while the patient was labouring under the other; or even (which we think an improbable hypothefis,) that both may have been received from the fame perfon at the same time. To fhew that the repulfion of the matter of a gonorrhoea will not produce the symptoms of lues, he brings inftances in which a natural tranflation of the matter to a different part of the body, as the eye-lids and nofe, has only caufed runnings which were removed by local applications, without mercury; and others, in which the imprudent ufe of injections has merely brought on inflammatory affections of the urinary parts. He adverts to the fact of one form of difeafe long existing in a country without the other; as the lues. in Otaheite without gonorrhoea, before their commerce with Europeans; and the Sibbens in fome parts of Scotland, a very infectious and inveterate fpecies of lues.

Having laid this foundation, the importance of which in practice will eafily be difcerned, the writer proceeds to a detailed hiftory of the virulent gonorrhoea, with its various fymptoms. Thefe he diftinguishes into four fets, indicating four ftates or ftages of the disease, which are confidered with great attention, and are judiciously difcuffed: but we refer our medical readers to the work at large.

In a chapter on Chordee, Mr. B. recommends opium as the moft effectual remedy for this symptom. In hæmorrhages from the urethra, he has found much benefit from a plentiful ufe of

gum kino. A fection on gonorrhoea in women contains little. worthy of notice. The fymptoms being commonly of the milder kind, aftringent injections are more generally applicable in them than in men.

The section on obftructions in the urethra arranges them under the heads of, tumours in the fubftance of the urethra and contiguous parts, fpafmodic affections of the urethra, caruncles or Alefhy excrefcences, and ftrictures properly fo called. We find nothing in this part which is not generally known to furgeons : but the subjects are treated with clearness, and the particular directions refpecting the use of bougies will be found useful to young ftudents.

The next section has the title of deranged fenfations in the bladder, urethra, and contiguous parts; and here again we must refer to the book.

The remainder of the first volume, treating on various circumftances attending or following gonorrhoea, fuch as humoral hernia, fwellings of the lymphatics, &c. exhibits the most intelligent practice in thefe points, but we think it unneceffary to extract any particulars.

The fecond volume of the work relates to Lues Venerea. After fome general observations, a particular account is given of the symptoms of this disease; which we recommend to the attention of the young furgeon.

In treating on the remedies for the lues, the author begins with mercury. He confiders firft its general effects, as an univerfal ftimulant and evacuant, and then its particular operation in the cure of the disease. He enumerates and objects to the various hypotheses which have been invented to account for this fact, and finally refts on that fuppofition which, in reality, is only cutting the knot, that mercury acts as an antidote to the virus. We do not think that his reasons in fupport of this doctrine are fufficiently conclufive, and we doubt the accuracy of fome of the facts alleged in proof of it.

The fections on the preparations of mercury, and on the modes of exhibiting it, contain all the ufual information, but nothing new. The preference is finally given to unction. With respect to the quantity of mercury exhibited, and the duration of the course, Mr. Bell is an advocate for a medium between the fevere falivations formerly practifed, and the modern alterative method; advifing, in general, that the remedy be gradually pushed to a very confiderable affection of the mouth, with confinement; and that it be continued in flight cafes during a fortnight, and in bad cafes during a month, after all the symptoms have difappeared.

The

The regimen to be obferved, and the relief of certain fymptoms often occurring during the course, are next treated, and give occafion to a variety of good practical remarks. Under the question whether mercury ever fails in the cure, Mr. B. confiders the complications of this disease with fcurvy and fcrophula, which fometimes render its cure very difficult, and even impracticable till an alteration be produced in the conftitution; and he also allows that a long continued ufe of mercury itself will fometimes caufe a fort of fcorbutic diathefis, in which the fame remedy will rather aggravate than remove the symptoms. Yet he thinks himself juftified in afferting, in general terms, that a full and proper ufe of mercury may be confidered as nearly infallible. How far the conceffions, which he has been obliged to make, are at all reconcileable with the notion that mercury acts as an antidote, we leave our medical readers to judge. He alfo allows a real antifyphilitic power in guaiacum and farfaparilla; though, with moft other practitioners, he thinks that they should not be trufted without the addition of mercury. With respect to opium, he conceives it to be useful merely from its effect in quieting irritation.

The next fection treats directly on the cure of the lues :-but here again the fubject forces us to refer to the volume itself.

The chapter refpecting the disease called the Sibbens gives a ftatement of its fymptoms and cure, which proves it to be a kind of variety of the difeafe which is the general fubject of this publication.

A fubfequent fection treats on lues as inducing other diseases: that it has, in fact, the power of bringing on a variety of unufual fymptoms, and mafking itfelf under the femblance of other diforders, Mr. B. joins with preceding authors in afferting; and he illuftrates the pofition by the relation of feveral cafes, which may be perufed with advantage; though in fome, perhaps, the medical reader will draw conclufions different from thofe of the intelligent author.

Our opinion of this work, on the whole, is, that it makes an ufeful addition to the practical treatifes on the fubject, and may in most points be fafely trufted as a guide to the young practitioner. It appears to us, however, not free from errors; and several of the author's reafonings feem neither clear nor confiftent. As a man of experience, we are inclined generally to confide in him: but, when he attempts the part of a theorift, we are not unfrequently obliged to withhold our conviction. Ai.

ART. X. Experiments on the Nervous System, with Opium and Metalline Subftances; made chiefly with the View of determining the Nature and Effects of Animal Electricity. By Alexander Monro, M. D. Profeffor of Medicine, Anatomy, and Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, &c. &c. 4to. pp. 43. 35. fewed. Johnfon. 1793.

THE

HE extraordinary facts communicated to the world by Meffrs. Galvani and Valli, by which the fecret of the nervous influence feemed to be detected, naturally incited a number of ingenious men in different feats of science to engage in inquiries on the fubject; and the public have already been put in poffeffion of the refults from various quarters. The celebrated Profeffor, whofe work is now before us, added his experimental difcoveries to the number; and though they make no material addition to the knowlege which we have acquired from other fources, yet it cannot but be fatisfactory, to those who are interested in the subject, to find the prevalent doctrine confirmed by another inquirer of fuch acknowleged abilities and

accuracy.

After fome obfervations on the circulating and nervous systems of frogs, Dr. Monro relates a few experiments on opium; from which, and from the preceding facts, he draws certain corollaries relative to nervous fympathy; particularly refuting - Fontana's opinion that poifons act on the blood; and ascribing their fatal effects to their action on the nerves of the vascular fyftem, and, through thefe, on the nervous fyftem in general,

He then gives a fummary of experiments made on animals with metalline fubftances, concluded by a fummary of facts proved by them. From thefe he deduces the following points of resemblance between the fluid put in motion by these experiments, and the electric fluid :-Both communicate a sense of pungency to the tongue. Both are readily conveyed by water, blood, the bodies of animals, and the metals; and are arrefted in their courfe by glafs, fealing-wax, &c. Both pass with the fame rapidity through the bodies of animals. Both excite the activity of the veffels of a living animal, producing pain and hæmorrhage. Both excite convulfions of the mufcles. When the metals and the animal are kept in contact, the convulfions cease, or an equilibrium feems to be produced, as after discharging the Leyden phial.

The nervous fluid or energy is not, however, the fame with the electric fluid, nor with the fluid put in motion by the above experiments for, where the electric fluid is accumulated in an apjmal, as in the torpedo, there is a peculiar apparatus for it:-the nervous power is excited by mechanical or chemical ftimuli, and is deftroyed by poifons, which have no action on

the

the electric fluid :-the theory that the nerve is electrified plus, and the muscle minus, is difproved, by fhewing that the muscles are convulfed when there is no communication between them and the metals but by the medium of the nerve, and when the muscles make no part of the circle:-the mufcles are convulfed while the current of electric matter paffes from them and the fmaller branches of the nerves into their trunks; whereas the nervous energy never produces action in mufcles but when it paffes from trunk to branches:- the nervous energy is ftopt by tight ligature or tranfverfe incifion of a nerve, whereas the electric and metallic fluid pafs freely upward and downward along a nerve which has been tied, or even cut, if its ends be placed in contact:-after amputation of a limb, frequent convulfions may be excited by the application of ftimuli to the nerves; whereas the electric matter difcharges itself fuddenly.

The general conclufion of the whole is, that the fluid, paffing from different metals and exciting convulfion, is the fame, or nearly fo, with the electric; that it operates on the muscular fibres only by means of the nerves; and that it acts merely as a ftimulus to the nervous fluid or energy.

Ai.

ART. XI. Afyftematical View of the Laws of England; as treated of in a Course of Vinerian Lectures, read at Oxford, during a Series of Years, commencing in Michaelmas Term 1777. By Richard Wooddefon, D. C. L. Vinerian Profeffor, &c. Royal 8vo. 3 Vols. pp. 1710. 11. 11s. 6d. Boards. Payne. 1792, 1793.

N the year 1783, Mr. Wooddefon published a work entitled Elements of Jurifprudence*, which he intended as an introduction to the prefent, and which may very properly be read in connection with it.-The whole courfe is divided into fixty lectures, exclufively of the fix preliminary differtations contained in the former publication, which are not here inferted, though they are frequently quoted.

Before we proceed to the confideration of the prefent volumes, we must remark that the author had many difficulties to encounter, in treading over the ground which had been preOccupied by Wood in his Inftitutes, and afterward by Blackftone in his Commentaries; and much praife is due to him in those instances in which he difcovers novelty in his manner of illuftrating a fubject before explained, or in which he introduces ufeful matter omitted by his predeceffors.

Mr. W. has divided his work into the three following general divifions: 1ft, Of the laws as referred to perfons; which correfponds with the first volume of Blackstone,treating of the

* See Rev. vol. lxx. p. 169.

Ff4

rights