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bed, takes away the cup from the truss, and with a pin. wounds the snail, at intervals, in different places. From each wound is given out through the opening in the shell, sometimes a blueish, sometimes a grey-coloured water, which must be caught on the wool in the cup.* This being sufficiently filled with the liquor is to be placed on the part affected, always very exactly in the same situation; it is then to be covered with a white linen cloth, and the cushion of the truss applied over it. This treatment is to be pursued three or four months, changing the wool occasionally, and attending to other accidents, as inflammation or excoriation in the part where the cup is applied. By this method, says M. Tarenne, a common hernia may be cured in three or at least four months." It is evident that M. Tarenne assumes it to be a fact, that the fluid exuding from the wound made in the snail has an agglutin ating property, or the faculty of producing something that will close the hernial aperture. We fear that this will not be found to be the fact, and that we shall have to regret, after many thousand of these little animals have been destroyed, that M. Tarenne's project will, for want of success, be forgotten. It has been the misfortune of the genus Helix to have affixed to it a vulgar opinion, of affording, in several of its species at least, a specific for some obdurate diseases. Even yet the Helix pomatia, found in Surry, particularly about Guildford, Dorking, Boxhill, &c. is sacrificed in incredible numbers, to make what the country people call snail water, a compound, possessed, in popular opinion, of extraordinary powers.

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*If it could be admitted that any kind of snail afforded a principle, or material, that had the property of reproducing destroyed animal substance, it would be highly desirable to ascertain that species: then would the vague description of M. Tarenne be regretted. Of the thirty-eight species of British Helices, we believe the Helix hortensis has been that most employed for medical purposes. Some disease of the chest, resembling phthisis pulmonalis, having got well during its use, has given it temporary fame; but its application to the true phthisis always destroyed that fame. Thus has it, froin time to time, risen and fallen in public estimation. It is not, perhaps, so generally known that the garden-snail has been employed in ascites. In this disease, the bruised animal, in large quantity, made into cataplasm with barley flour, and a species of lichen not correctly described, is applied over the navel. In one instance, tolerably authenticated, and where the patient had filled after paracentesis, the application of this cataplasm was followed by complete recovery. The Helix pomatia is the most remarkable of the British species. This is principally, if not exclusively, found on the Surry Hills, where, in the month of May, the animal with its

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The theoretical and practical parts of medicine bave received in the year 1809, considerable and interesting accessions. The attention that has been given to a train of diseases which have been considered as the opprobrium of the English climate, from the importance of their object, will claim the serious deliberation of the Faculty. There is some impregnation of the atmosphere of the British islands, or some impression from its vicisitudes, that render pulmonic complaints of more frequent recurrence among their inhabitants, than in other parts of the globe. These complaints assume a variety of forms, from the common catarrhal cough of the spring months, where the secreting membrane of the bronchia recovers from, or goes through the stages of the disease in ten or fourteen days, to chronic winter cough, serious pneumonic inflammation or bronchitis, and the destructive phthisis pulmonalis. All these depend, it is believed, on some state of the air; or, perhaps, on habits of life acting in conjunction with atmospherical vicisitudes except the phthisis, which possibly has its cause in some strumous state of the lungs, rather than in the atmosphere; though the accidents of that fluid will undoubtedly accelerate its progress, or bring into action the latent taint. Experience has often borne out the Brunonian doctrine of the cause of simple catarrh. The Elementa Medicine, agreeably to its leading principle, asserted that these affections of the bronchial membrane were occasioned by the sudden application of heat after exposure to cold. In the language of the system, this was explained to be an application of an exciting power, in a disproportionate degree to a part where the excitability, property, or susceptibility to be acted upon, was accumulated, from the absence or reduced standard of the exciting power. The

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large cream coloured shell, moving among the herbage, never fails to excite attention. The appearance of this snail in England is fixed to a precise period. Sir Kenelm Digby is asserted to have brought the first colony hither, with a view of employing the animal in medicine and there is a tradition still existing at Dorking, that a person who had resided long in Spain, brought a colony to Box-Hill, for the purpose of employing them for soup, to the use of which he had been accustomed in that country. Several attempts have been made to rear the Helir p. in other parts of England, without effect; some have been brought to the gardens in the vicinity of the metropolis, but have soon died; indeed, it has been found impracticable to preserve them, even in the gardens of the town of Dorking; for they either escape from their new residence, or soon die in it. This snail was a favourite article of diet among the Romans, and Pliny speaks of its being enormonsly increased in size by feeding.

consequence of this would be, in the part where the excitability had accumulated from want of regular exhaustion, an increase of vascular action proceeding to that form of disease called inflammation. In this view of the cause

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of pulmonic complaints, it is evident that the hazard of taking cold, as it is popularly called, must be in proportion to the duration and degree of exposure to a low temperature, and to the degree and suddenness of the application of heat after this exposure. When heat is applied, under these circumstances, to the secreting surface of the bronchial membrane in a certain degree, common catarrh is produced in another degree, severe, and often fatal, bronchitis. When the parenchyma of the lungs, or their investing membrane, feel the impression, pneumonia or pleuritis ensues. This doctrine receives elucidation and support, by recurring to the known effects produced on animal bodies by the disproportionate action of cold and heat. These effects are, on the surface of the body, pain, inflammation, and gangrene. Very slight attention to the subject will ascertain that the symptoins of a cold or catarrb, first appear in the evening when shut up in a warm room near to a fire, and while taking warm or hot fluids. And so distinctly may this sometimes be marked, as to shew that the affection appears first on that side of the face nearest to the fire. Whatever may eventually be the fate of the Brunonian theory, there exist a sufficient number of facts to prove the danger that results from the application of artificial heat, both in health and in disease. Possibly, the asserted increase of pulmonary complaints may arise from the great exposure to cold, the effect of modern cloathing opposed to close, carpeted, and heated rooms, These observations apply principally to the prophylaxis; when disease has appeared, the object and the means will be different. The treatment of consumption, the most destructive of this morbid train, has been studied with an exactness that promised a successful result. But every method failing, the last resource is sought in a mild and unvarying temperature of air, at Lisbon, Montpellier, Nice, or Madeira. It has been thought that this steady temperature might be artificially produced in this country; and Dr. Buxton, in an "Essay on the Use of a Regulated Temperature in Winter Cough and Consumption," has pointed out its efficacy, and suggested a mode of execution. Something of this kind had been proposed a few years since by Dr. Adams, (Med. and Phys. Journ. v. 311.) and Dr. George Pearson, (Phil. Mag.) has lately projected a similar

similar resource for those consumptive patients who cannot seek relief in warmer climates.

Fevers, especially the contagious and epidemic, have always been considered by the Faculty, as diseases of the most serious importance; and great labor has been employed in the investigation of their qualities, causes, and symptoms. The expedition to Walcheren has unfortunately afforded many opportunities of studying the epidemic of marshy countries; and probably much light will be thrown on the causes and peculiarities of this fatal disease. This year has, however, hardly allowed time to elucidate the character of this epidemic, or to ascertain the quality of the causes that produced it. In some seasons, the fenny parts of this kingdom have suffered under the influence of this disease, a devastation nearly equal to that which took place in the Walcheren expedition; and the progress of the fever has been as severe, allowing for the aggravation that all diseases experience from circumstances peculiar to the military life. It has never been discovered why the marsh remittent becomes epidemic in some years only. Within the memory of many of our readers, this fever has had an extraordinary prevalence in England. In 1780 and in 1808 this happened; but we have not learned that any peculiarity proper to these years has been detected, sufficient to explain the cause of this. The ingenious Inquiry into the Laws of Epidemics, by Dr. Adams, published this year, though it goes far in elucidating many circumstances belonging to this class of diséases, and makes nice discriminations between this cause of fever and contagions, does not very distinctly mark the character of epidemic seasons. The non-contagious nature of various fevers, which have generally been allowed to have a contagious origin, the plague in particular, he contends for with much curious research into their history, and much able reasoning; but which do not carry with them full conviction. The yellow fever, that source not only of destruction to human life, but of perpetual collision of opinion, we are again called upon to notice by Dr. Chisholm's Letter to Dr. Haygarth; in which he exhibits additional evidence of the infectious nature of this distemper, and endeavours to correct the pernicious, as he calls them, doctrines promulgated by Dr. Edward Miller and other American physicians, relative to this pestilence. Dr. Chisholm supports his opinion both by facts and reasoning, and with an earnestness that shews his own conviction. The American physicians have been extremely anxious

anxious to convince their brethren in other parts of the world, that the yellow fever is not contagious, but is produced by the extrication of some gaseous effluvia from putrid vegetable matter. In 1807, this opinion was examined with as much attention as the limits of this Sketch permitted; and it was contrasted with the arguments for contagious origin. The reasonings on both sides were so equally poised, that the mind was left in a state of indeci sion. Neither does it appear that the physicians of America are perfectly decided in their opinion; for we have now to state the promulgation of a new hypothesis in that country, or rather the revival of an old one, to explain the origin, not only of Typhus icteroides, but of all epidemics. Dr. John Crawford of Baltimore, in a Memoir entitled, "Remarks on Quarantines," published in a periodical paper called the Observer, endeavours by a long train of reasoning to prove, not only that the yellow fever, but all other febrile affections, are consequences of animalcular action upon human bodies. This, the wildest of philosophical vagaries, has taken full possession of Dr. Crawford, who, earnest in his opinion, is zealous for its support. He is, however, probably not aware of the progress of this hypothesis in Europe; and that very early, and at various subsequent periods, it has agitated the medical world. In the twelfth century, the Arabians had some loose theory of this sort; and in 1598, Dr Mouffet, in the Theatrum Insectorum, mentions the circumstance.— But the earliest detailed and regular accounts of diseases of the most formidable nature being generated by animalcula, is in Hauptman's Epistola Preliminaris Tractatui de viva Mortis imagine, &c. published at Frankfort, 1650. Augustus Hauptman took the degree of Doctor in Physic at Leipsic, in 1653, resided at Dresden, and had the reputation of being an excellent chemist. He has been better known among physicians by his wild notions respecting the primary cause of diseases, all of which he regarded as arising from some species of vermes. The Treatise de viva Mortis imagine, the precursor to which was published in 1650, does not appear to have been printed; but the year after Hauptman took his Doctor's degree, he published, at Dresden, an 8vo volume, in which he treats of animalcula as the cause of diseases, with a minuteness and precision uncommon at that period. The Scrutinum Pestis of Kircher, published at Rome in 1658, supports Hauptman's opinions with much ingenious subtlety. Kircher was a man of deep learning, as is evinced by his Edipus Egyptiacus

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