parts, besides the organ of hearing. Cretins are not included in this enumeration. Some other statistical reports make the number of deaf and dumb in the Austrian dominions, exclusive of Hungary, and before the late division of the empire, amount to two thousand, of whom 1106 are stated to be of an age between seven and fourteen, proper for admission into the schools. In the Danish dominions, the deaf and dumb amount to 515, in the different bishopricks, whose population is stated at 820,621, according to the returns made at the first anniversary of the institution for instructing the deaf and dumb, held at Copenhagen, on the 28th January 1807. The following are the proportions in the six bishopricks of Denmark, and they are most probably accurate, because the returns were made by the clergy. * In the island of Bornholm, the proportion is said to be still greater. The difference is remarkable; but as there is no medical topography of these places, what influence climate may have in occasioning deafness, cannot be determined. Boys born deaf are more numerous than girls. The director of the school at Vienna (Mr May) stated this difference, in Austria, to be in the proportion of four to one; and there are comparatively very few females in any of the schools, which are established in almost every town in Germany. It has been observed, wherever several children in the same family are born deaf, (not an unfrequent occurrence), they are always of the same sex. Instances are known of deaf and dumb persons, of both sexes, marrying, and having children, who have had their senses quite perfect; but instances on the contrary are more common, and deafness is so often hereditary, that the experiment of marriage should be carefully avoided. Professor Rosenmuller at Leipsic, has dissected the organs of hearing and of speech in persons born deaf, but he found nothing peculiar in them. He has tried galvanism, but without success. One child suffered acute pain during the application of the pile, and seemed to acquire an increased sensibility of hearing for the first month; but this beneficial effect soon disappeared. Galvanism has been tried in other places, but ineffectually. The curious story told by Bishop Burnet in his * Allgemeine, Literatur-Zeitung. June 1807. travels, of a girl at Geneva, who could hold a conversation in the dark, by laying her hand upon her companion's lips, is not confirmed by subsequent experience. So few words are pronounced by the movement of the lips, that the history seems improbable. The mode adopted for conversing in the dark, is by writing the word wanted to be communicated, with the finger upon the palm of the hand or on the back of the neck, thus addressing the sense of touch, which, as well as that of sight, is rendered by attention and exercise wonderfully acute. In congenital deafness, medicine can do very little. In one species, the practical philosophy of Mr Astley Cooper has enabled surgery to do much; but unfortunately, the obstruction of the Eustachian tube is not so common as other causes of deafness; and only a part of the art of curing it is yet learned, while the artist wants to make use of the whole. There is a sect among us who have established their dominion over the ears, and call themselves aurists; but their reputation and success are inferior to another self-elected fraternity, denominated by the ancients gingiviste, who proceed on the very rational hypothesis not to cure, but to remove the part affected. As a matter of curiosity, it may be mentioned, that the earliest known writer upon the art of instructing the deaf and dumb, is a Spaniard, Juan Pabbó Bonnet. His work is entitled, "Redution de las lettras y arte para ensennar a ablas los Mutos. Madrid, par Francesco Abarca de Angulo, 1620," in 4to, with eight copperplates, and a table. En PART PART II. CRITICAL ANALYSIS. I. Des Erreurs Populaires relatives à la Médecine. Par M. RICHERAND, Professeur de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris, &c, &c. pp. 234. 8vo. à Paris, 1810. THIS THIS book is really not worth the perusal. From the title, we expected to find what would have been an useful and instructive work, an imitation of Primerosius de Vulgi erroribus in Medicina, adapted to the prejudices and absurdities of the French of the present day; and we were inclined to suspect Professor Richerand of plagiarism, when we found that he took no notice in his preface of the prototype we had assigned him. But our suspicions were unjust, for he has borrowed nothing from Primrose but the mere title, which he most probably saw in some catalogue. Indeed we do not conceive it possible that any one who read the book itself, could have produced so flimsy a performance upon the same subject. For although many of the prejudices combated at length by Primrose are now utterly exploded, and although not entirely free from the medical prejudices of his age, there are many of his chapters which are still deserving of careful perusal, independently of the correctness of his language, the terseness of his style, the good sense which pervades every part of his volume, and the satisfactory manner in which he treats each separate subject, always illustrating it sufficiently, and never allowing himself to digress into irrelevant matter. Richerand's production is of a totally different nature; and the reason is very obvious. The work of our countryman is evidently the result of much reflection; and, if we mistake not, it was often revised and corrected before it was presented to the public. Its author endeavoured to render it a lasting monument of his knowledge and talents. Not so our present author. It appears to us, that, having resolved to write a book which should sell, he had met with a title which suited his purpose; and, without any settled plan, or knowing how he was to make a volume of it, he sent each sheet to the press, whilst the ink with which it was scrawled was still wet. Accordingly, notwithstanding his declamatory diffuseness, and his treating at great length of many things totally unconnected with his subject, we find him obliged to swell his empty volume with an appendix of paradoxes. As Richerand has some celebrity, it will be necessary to justify so severe a judgment of his latest publication. He begins by telling us that the object of his work is not to instruct the public in the art of curing diseases, but to prove to them that there is no science less accessible to them, and more difficult and dangerous in practice. He also informs us, that he will not notice points still unsettled, and that no doubtful opinion will be advanced. He will only speak of those erroneous practices, to which time, instead of weakening or destroying them, daily gives its sanction and support; nor does he pretend to have collected all the errors relative to medicine, but only those most diffused, and consequently most dangerous. He divides his work into three parts. The first is devoted to errors in the physical education of infants, the second to those relating to health and its preservation, and the last to diseases and remedies. So far there is little to censure. We admit that a work upon this plan, if well executed, might have done much good, and we even forgive him for his whimsical project of a 66 Code of Errors," in the completion of which he proposes, that the most enlightened men in every department of science should unite their talents. To the popular errors in the physical education of infants, he devotes no less than twelve pages! And these are occupied in proving that midwives cannot mould the heads of new-born infants according to their notions of beauty; that Aulus Gellius anticipated Rousseau in showing that mothers ought to suckle their children; but that the philosopher of Geneva exaggerated the matter, when he declared that the child had no evil to fear from the blood of which he was formed, and that new-born infants should be bathed in cold water. Having finished his corrections of Rousseau's errors, our author proceeds to say, that heavy machines ought not to be employed for the cure of crooked spines; that sympathetic purging from teething should not be checked; that children do not suck away their senses, by being kept at the breast three years; that nævi materni do not proceed from the imagination of the mother, and it was unnecessary for a certain German writer to compose a very large and indelicate book in Latin to prove the contrary, especially as Germans have no wit, and a translation of it would hurt the delicacy of the French; and lastly, were he to speak of the absurdity of necklaces to facili tate dentition, and such like prejudices, he would be wielding the club of Hercules to crush an insect! Our readers will readily pardon us if we should not proceed through the remaining chapters so minutely. In that on the means of health, he runs over very rapidly the six non-naturals, proves that oysters do not dissolve in milk, relates an anecdote of an awkward footman, who, on breaking a glass decanter, acknowledged that he had been handling parsley, and launches out into. episodes against the Schola Salernitana, and the Domestic Medicines of Buchan and Tissot. The errors in relation to diseases occupy the greater part of this volume, as in reality they are more numerous; but as our author has treated his subject, many of his observations are totally misplaced; and notwithstanding his prefatory promise, we find him entering upon many disputed points, and advancing opinions far from having the unanimous support of every intelligent person. At the very outset, he discusses the doctrines of the incarnation of wounds, and accuses the supporters of the regeneration of nerves, of the falsehood of stating experiments which they never performed, and observations they never made. Courir comme un dératé is, it seems a French proverb, the absurdity of which Richerand thinks it necessary to expose; and then comments; not very consistently in a book upon popular errors, at considerable length upon a series of proverbs, which, he says, "renferment un sens profond et vrai caché sous une expression triviale;' and they are very convenient; for example, "C'est une machoire, gives him an opportunity for filling two or three pages with an account of Camper's facial angle; and the last of his proverbs, "Vieux médecin et jeune chirurgien" brings him back to his subject, by leading him to examine the prejudices which exist among the public, in regard to the practitioners worthy of their confidence, in the course of which we meet with various illiberal and narrow notions. We learn from it, however, that the " Officiers de santé" of modern France are profoundly ignorant, and that the crea tion of the new sect of practitioners will inevitably rob the profession of medicine of all its lustre. He even proposes to suppress them." Is the most learned physician always the most skilful and worthy of our confidence?" Our author thinks not. "There is a quality more desirable and more useful than the most profound science, I mean tact, that precious quality, refused or granted by nature, and which is in medicine what taste is in literature. It consists in sensibility, happily perfectionated by education. He who enjoys it, astonishes us by views as prompt as they are fine and delicate, and by determination as just as rapid. The physician possessed of the gift of tact, alone has, in the moment of danger, those happy |