But what encouragement real in the goods of fortune, or imaginary in the opinions of the world, can any man have for turning patriot? if he really means well, he will poffefs neither: certainly not the firft; and he will lofe the latter, the moment he acts beyond the ideas of the mob. What glimpse of hope can he have of fuccefs? In parliament the Crown is so strong, that an orator may waste a dozen piir of very well toned langs, before he out-talks the power of minifterial gold: he has not an Athenian or a Roman mob to harangue, but men whofe education just gives them the plea of a fyftematic defence, and apology for the moft glaring venality: how is he to make an impreffion on the needy fons of extravagance, who have learning enough to be fophifts? Can he expect, that the flowers of rhetoric and flights of fancy fhall be weightier than pots and penfions? A place at the board of Cuftoms or Excife; paymafter hip; or a contract; are not thefe powers beyond the eloquence of a Tully or Demofthenes?' The foregoing extracts have been felected as the most favourable for our Author which we could meet with in his performance. In what he has remarked concerning the national debt of England, and concerning population, there are affertions fo fingular and fallacious, that we do not know whether to afcribe them to his having altogether neglected to inform himfelf with regard to thefe fubjects, or to an affectation of paradox. In what he has faid of the most celebrated writers of the prefent age, it is eafy to perceive, that he had not always their productions before him; and that frequently he was unable to diftinguish between their imperfections and their merits. What he has advanced concerning Agriculture, Manufac tures and Commerce, we fhall take another opportunity to examiné. MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For APRIL, MEDICA, L. 1772. Art. 11. An Enquiry into the Influence of the Electric Fluid, in the Structure and Formation of animated Reings. By Marmaduke Berdoe, Doctor in Phyfic, of the Faculty of Montpellier, &c. 8vo. 4s. Boards. Bath. 1771. Sold by Dodfley, &c. in London.. T is a fundamental article in the creed of a Reviewer, that no trust is to be put in title pages. The wary critic, therefore, hallily turns over the firà treacherous page of the work before him, and begins his critical labours at the preface, where he fcrapes an acquaintance with his author, and expects to receive from him some more fatisfactory intimations of his defigns. la purfuance of this long 24 efta. eftablished and feemingly fagacious plan of critical operations, we carefully perused, with much fatisfaction, the prefatory addrefs at the head of this Enquiry; and we afterward entered upon the work itfelf, under a firm perfuafion, grounded on the contents of the faid preface, that we fhould find it totally free from vague and fanciful theories, and replete with found practical knowledge, deduced from clinical obfervations made on the fick, and on the operations of remedies. But verily there is no truft to be put now-a-days even in prefaces. The Author there informs us that, in confequence of an invinci ble defire,' or call, he had been led through many disadvantages to the study of phyfic;' where he had been obliged to trace out the way for himself, through the intricate paths of the medical art: that he was furprized to find fo little uniformity in the practice and theory of phyficians, and was ftrongly incited to difcover the caufe of thefe variations. He at laft began to fufpect that the doctrine of the once celebrated Boerhaave was the fource of all that evil which he fo much wished to avoid.' In this piteous and undetermined ftate,' poor Gentleman! he left Leyden, the German, and Flemish schools,' and visited Paris. In this laft place an end was happily put to his difquietudes: for here he found a fet of medical fages, who had fhook off the errors of Boerhaave's doctrine, and had refolved to take nature only for their guide, and to confirm their theory by clinical obfervations. He was now perfuaded that the excellence of a phyfician does not confist in a knowledge of the imaginary laws of circulation, or in vain conjectures on the force of mufcles.' In fhort, he refolved to put himself under the guidance of Meffrs. De Bordeu, La Caze, Fouquet, Robert, Michel, Barthes, and the celebrated M. Vennel; to be directed by these new luminaries, and to hold forth their fhining lights to the world; trimmed and improved by himself in the prefent publication. Impatient to be introduced to this groupe of worthies, and to be initiated into doctrines which lead to fuch a defirable and unexpected defideratum, as medical uniformity, we attend the Author in his introduction; where, inftead of leading us, as we hoped, to the very bedfides of the fick, we find him, to our great aftonishment, treating only of the most high and recondite matters; mounting up to the Syncellian Chronicle, and defcanting, ab ovo ufque, on the formation and primitive state of the terraqueous globe, before the creation of the fun, and other fublime concerns, as diftant from the purport of the preface, as the titles of fome of Montaigne's chapters are from the fubjects treated in them. With regard to the body of this work, we fcarce know how to characterize or give any account of its contents. Not a page immediately applicable to medical practice is to be found in it. It is replete with theory and fanciful conjectures, well or ill founded, from one end of it to the other; on fuch fubjects as, the nature of man; the generation and expanfion of the embryo; proofs of a propulfive force exerted in the animal molecule, &c. This laft doctrine is attempted to be proved, and the quomodo explained, by fome microscopical obfervations made by the Author, on the fucceffive ex panfion panfion of the parts in tadpoles; which is fuppofed to be effected by means of an etherial principle that animates the mucus, from which, these new philofophers inform us, every animated part of nature is formed. And though, with regard to the errors of Boerhaave's doctrine,' and thofe of the mechanical and chemical physicians; Meffrs. De Bordeu, De Caze, &c. with their pupil and expofitor Dr. Berdoe, may authoritatively fay, with the Doctor in Moliere, Nous avons changé tout cela, we cannot difcover from this account of the doctrines substituted in their ftead, that the change is made for the better.-Error for error, we think the old ones full as fpecious as, and somewhat more comprehenfible than, the new. As to the influence of the electric fluid, fo fpeciously set forth in the title-page, as a prime agent in the generation and formation of animals, we cannot contradict the affertion; but we find nothing in this treatife that clears up this grand phyfical arcanum, or any other, by any new experiments or difcoveries relating to that fluid; the name of which indeed, as well as æther, atherial principle, electric impulfe, &c. very commodioufly occur almoft in every page; but for which any others might have been fubftituted, with almost equal fatisfaction to the philofophical reader. On the whole, the utmost we can fay in favour of this work is, that it exhibits proofs of the Author's multifarious reading, and of his endeavours to improve himself in the knowledge of certain matters more or less relative to his new vocation; which he avowedly commenced and profecuted under many difficulties and disadvantages. Indeed feveral marks of thefe difadvantages appear, in the midst of all our Author's oftentation of erudition in this performance, that feem not fairly chargeable upon the prefs. But whatever may be his perfonal merits in this refpect, we cannot much commend his difcretion, in felecting one of the obfcureft parts of a very abftrufe art, for the fubject of his first attempt: nor can we conceive a very favourable opinion of his humility, in propofing to enlighten the medical and philofophical world by his prefent labours, and in fetting off in the high ftyle of a fubverter of all the mechanical and chemical fchools, on the ftrength of fome heterogeneous reading, and a little flimfy philofophy. It would have become him too to have treated even the errors of a Boerhaave with a little more respect. Art. 12. An Eflay on the Pudendagra. By Mermaduke Berdoe 8vo. 1 S. This Effay is of a more practical nature than the Author's foregoing publication. It contains an account of what the ancients and moderns have faid on this disease, and of the circumftances in which it differs from the lues venerea. But if the Author is determined to write on, we would advise him to be more folid, and lefs florid, pathetic, and declamatory in his future medical productions. This French frippery and tinfel, which he has visibly imported with him from the continent, is neither adapted to the taste of his English readers, nor to the fubject. Art. Art. 13. Effays on feveral important Subjects in Surgery, &c. The Whole illuftrated with Copper plates. By John Aitken, Surgeon, of the College and Incorporation of Surgeons in Edinburgh. 8vo. 4 s. fewed. Dilly. 1771. In the first of thefe Effays, which forms the most confiderable and bfeful part of this work, the Author treats of the nature and cure of Fractures of the bones of the extremities. After exhibiting an ele mentary, but clear and methodical view of the phyfiological and pas thological doctrines on this fubject, on the different articles of extenfion, coaptation, retention, &c. in general, the Author proceeds to treat of the fractures of the thigh and leg-bones in particular. We not long fince endeavoured to explain the very great improvements, communicated to the public by Mr. Pott, on this particular branch of furgery, and which were founded on an attention to a fimple and fcemingly obvious, but hitherto neglected, circumftance; the keeping of the mufcles furrounding the fractured bone in a state of relaxation, with a view both to facilitate the reduction, and to promote the retention, of the fractured parts. Though the Author approves In general the principles of that excellent writer on this subject, he is neverthelfs of opinion that the due retention of a fractured Os femaris is not, in many cafes, to be effected merely by poiture or relaxation; but that mechanical means are likewife requifite to counterat the frong contractile power of the mufcles belonging to that limb. After examining the feveral contrivances which have been offered for this purpofe, and particularly defcribing and delineating the machines invented by Hildanus and Mr. Gooch, to which he offers fome objections, he propofes his own; which appears to be commodious in the application, and well adapted to fulfil the purpose expected from it, and feems, from a fhort paffage in the preface, to have been fuccefsfully employed in practice. Experience alone can finally decide in matters of this nature; and, for that reason, we wish that the inventor had been more fatisfactorily explicit on this head. In thofe cafes, in which a continued extension of the limb is undoubtedly neceffary [as where there is a confiderable loss of fubftance of the bone, &c.) the apparatus here recommended must be particularly ferviceable. In the fucceeding Effay, the Author applies the principles on which his method of accomplishing the retention of the fragments of the thigh and leg-bones is founded, to the cure of the fractured Tendo Achillis. In the next, he propofes to adapt part of the fame machinery to the purpofe of preventing the retraction of the skin and mufcular parts, and the confequent protrufion of the bone, after an amputation of the thigh. The Author's propofed method, which is liable to fome objections, might be rendered still more effectual by operating in the manner defcribed by M. Louis, in the zd and 4th volumes of the Memoirs of the R. Academy of Surgery. The rationale, and a fhort defcription of this method, the Reader will find in the Appendix to our 37th volume, page 592. See M. Review, vol. xl. June 1769, page 466. In the first of the two following Effays, a part of the apparatus above-mentioned is recommended, for the purpofe of producing a proper degree of compreffion on the flump, after amputation of the lower extremities, and for the retention of fpunge or other fubftances on the part: and, in the fecond, the Author adapts his machinery with a view to accomplish the very difficult retention of the fragments of the patella, when fractured tranfverfely. In the last, the Author confiders the defects of the key instrument at prefent ufed in the drawe ing of teeth, and endeavours to obviate them in the conftruction of a new inftrument here defcribed.-On the whole, this work is evidently the production of a man of fcience and ingenuity, and con tains many hints which are worthy of the attention of practitioners. Art. 14. An Account of the Method of obtaining a perfect or radical Cure of the Hydrocele, or watery Rapture, by Means of a Seton. By Percival Pott, F. R. S. and Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hofpital. 8vo. -1 S. Hawes. 1771. We owe the prefent rational and fuccefsful methods of treating the diforder which is the fubject of this effay, to a more perfect knowledge of its nature, and of the anatomical ftructure and functions of the parts interested in it, than was poffeffed by our predeceffors whofe erroneous notions concerning it were naturally productive of an abfurd and inefficacious treatment. This disease, as we have formerly obferved, is now known to be only a partial or local dropfy, caufed by an accumulation of water or lymph; the feat of which is the cavity formed between the tunica albuginea or proper coat of the teffis, and the tunica vaginalis. feparated from each other by the contained fluid. The total abolition of this cavity muft neceffarily prevent any future collection and tumor, and confequently produce a radical cure of the diforder. Of one fuccefsful method of effecting this purpose, recommended by Mr. Elfe, we lately gave a particular account. [M. Review, Auguft 1770, page 138.] In that procefs the intire peccant part, or the whole tunica vaginalis, is deftroyed by means of a small cauftic, applied to a part of the ferctum. In that here propofed, a radical cure is effected by exciting an artificial inflammation in the fame membrane, by means of a feton. The membrane itself, however, is not deftroyed, as in the former method; but, in confèquence of the inflammation, is made to adhere to the tunica albuginea, throughout its whole extent, fo as to produce an obliteration of the cavity. The ingenious Author, purfuing a hint of the late Profeffor Monro, propofed this method in a former publication. He here fpeaks with confidence of its faccefs, as now improved by him; and defcribes it with that plainnefs and accuracy which distinguish his judicious and ufeful publications. MATHEMATICS and PHILOSOPHY. Art. 15. Fire Analyfed; or the feveral Parts of which it is compounded clearly demonftrated by Experiments, &c. and the Manner and Method of making Electricity medicinal and healing confirmed by a Variety of Cures. By Richard Symes, Rector of St. Werburgh's, Britol. 8vo. 1 s. 6d. Robinfon, &c. 1771. In an advertisement prefixed to this pamphlet the reverend Author raifes our curiofity, as philofophers and electricians, to the highest |