ah. Fatal effects of pickles impregnated with copper. * On the perceptive power of vegetables. * Facts and queries relative to attraction and repulfion. Narrative of the fufferings of a collier, with obfervations on the effects of famine. * On the powers and operations of medicines. On the folvent powers of camphor, &c. * Medical cautions and remarks, particularly relative to pulmonary diforders. On the medical ufes of cod liver oil. *On canine madness. *Facts and observations on the retrograde motion of the lymphatics: fympathy between the ftomach and lungs: and dyfury. * Practical observations on flowers of zinc: colic and hydrocephalus inter* Account of an earthquake. *On the filk cotton of Sumatra. * On the acid of tar. *On the conftruction and polity of prisons. On the improvement of the Manchester infirmary. nus. The greater part of the additional effays having been previously published in the memoirs of various focieties, or different periodical works, though now for the firft time collected together, we fhall pafs them over, obferving only, that a few of them have received fome little additions. The pieces properly new are-A few obfervations on a typhus that prevailed at Manchester, in which wine and the dulcified spirit of vitriol were almoft univerfally falutary.-On apoplexy. When the power of swallowing feems to be loft, a few grains of tartarifed antimony may be introduced in a dry form into the pharynx, fometimes with good effect.-On canine madnefs. Dr. Haygarth had propofed long continued ablution of the part with cold, and afterwards with warm water. Dr. P. joins with him in recommending the fame practice, though he fuppofes· the disease to be wholly nervous, and the effect of local irritation, not the confequence of any abforption of virus. With this view he compares it with fome cafes of tetanus, to which he finds it to have a ftriking analogy. This he fupports by fome obfervations of Dr. Rufh. A cafe of hydrophobia is alfo related from Dr. Darwin, induced by an injury done to the ancle by a fall; and fome others are mentioned in which no virus was concerned. Confidering all the means hitherto employed in this dreadful disease as not to be relied on, Dr. P. recommends a trial of the fox-glove, as acting fpeedily and forcibly on the nervous fyftem. As this view of the difeafe, however, is merely conjectural, the Doctor obferves he does not mean to forbid excifion of the part, where practicable, and the patient does not refuse to fubmit to the operation: he also recommends the gastric juice of a carnivorous animal to be applied to the wound, as the most powerful corrector of the virus, if virus do exift, from its being afferted that the faliva of a mad dog has been swallowed with impunity. D 3 The The additions tend chiefly to confirm the obfervations made in the effays to which they belong: but here we regret, that Dr. P.'s leifure would not permit him to digest the result of his farther experience concerning the hydrocephalus internus, and the use of mercury in affections of the head, with fome general remarks on the polity of hofpitals, for which the publication of the fecond volume was delayed. Thefe, however, we trust will not be loft to us. 3• ART. VIII. Practical Hints on Opium confidered as a Poifon. By R. Hamilton, M. D. 8vo. p. 46. Ipfwich, Jermyn. London, Longman, 1790. An accident which lately happened near Ipswich from a large dofe of opium being administered by mistake, has induced Dr. Hamilton, in the publication before us, to notice the different modes of treatment heretofore practifed in fuch cafes, and to recommend fuch as he thinks moft likely to be efficacious: thefe are emetics, purgatives and fudorifics, external ftimulants, ftrong agitation by running, walking and fhaking, immersion in warm water, &c. fuch methods as the reader must know even the most ignorant and inexperienced practitioner would not hesitate to make ufe of. It certainly could not be necessary for the Doctor to write this pamphlet to prove that opium taken in large dofes is a poifon; we expected therefore to find that he had fuggefted fome new method of counteracting the destructive power of this drug, but in this we are difappointed, the only idea we have obferved approximating to a new one, is what the author has advanced on the use of ipecacuanha, and this we fhall give our readers. There is reason, he fays, to fuppofe that fome fudorifics blunt the action of opium. It is well known that when emetics, neutral falts and opium are united, a much larger dofe of the opium may be administered with fafety and fuccefs as a medicine, than when given alone its action by this addition being modified. A proof of this we have in the compofition commonly known by the name of Dover's Sweating Powder. This is an union of opium, ipecacuanha and vitriolated tartar. To aflift them both in modifying the action of the opium and to procure fweat, either ipecacuanha in powder, or an antimonial, may be employed in warm water, to which a finall quantity of a neutral falt may be added: the opium being as we prefume already in the ftomach, will form a strong fudorific, and thus, part at least of the offending matter be converted into an antidote to destroy its own noxious quality, by hurrying it through the circulating fluids, and ex, pelling it by the pores of the fkin.' We have heard that fome experiments have been lately made in this metropolis with a view to difcover an antidote to this and fome other of the vegetable poifons, and in particular that a celebrated medical chemift is fanguine in his expectations of ર finding it in fome of the preparations of the aerated marine acid. Perhaps our difappointment in perufing this pamphlet was fomewhat increafed by this circumftance. P. ART. IX. A Treatise on the Inoculation of Horfes for the Strangles: in which is clearly laid down the Manner and Time of the Operation, the Preparation neceffary previous thereto, and the Mode of Treatment during the Continuance of the Disorder: the Whole being the Rfult of long and repeated Experience. By Richard Ford, of Birmingham: who has made the Complaints of Horfes his Study for more than fifty Years paft. 12mo. 23 p. Birmingham, Johnson, London, Piercy. 1790. THE analogy between the ftrangles and the finall-pox, which was firft fuggefted by M. Soleyfeil, prompted Mr. Ford to try whether the difeafe might not, as in the fmall-pox, be rendered more mild by an artificial communication of it. The experiment appears fully to have anfwered his expectations. His method of doing it, to ufe his own words, is as follows: I make an incifion on the infide of the upper lip, about an inch from its junction with the lower one, and at equal ditances from its outer edge, and where it attaches itfelf to the gum. This incifion is beft made with a lancet, fuch as is generally ufed for bleeding horfes, which is to be introduced at the place before directed, immediately under the fkin, and which may be easily done by inverting the lip, and holding it tightly turned with the left thumb and finger, over the under part of the fame hand. When the lancet is introduced to about the depth of half, or three quarters of an inch, the point of it is to be moved on each fide, in fuch a manner as to make the bottom of the wound wider than its orifice, which latter need not be larger than the lancet requires for its infertion. When the inciion is thus made, I take a small piece of lint, or fine tow, impregnated with the infectious matter, and with a probe introduce it into the wound beyond its edges, fo that no part of it be fuffered to hang out, otherwise it will be immediately thrown out by the action of the lip against the teeth and gums. The lint I fuffer to remain in the wound till it is difcharged, either by accident or fappuration. I have preferred the upper lip to the lower one for making the incifion on, on account of the dependant fituation of the wound, thereby preventing any future mifchiefs which might arife from a lodgment of the lint or matter. In two or three days after inoculation the lip will begin to inflame and fwell, and in feven or eight days more the glands under the jaw will be affected in like manner. These will continue fwelling about a week, and will generally be attended with fever, cough, and a difficulty of fwallowing. In about three weeks from this operation matter will begin to be formed under the lower jaw, and mott frequently on the fame fide as the lip inoculated. In lefs than a week more, fuppuration will have fully taken place, as will be evident from the loofenefs of the hair covering the fwelling, the oozing of D 4 matter matter through the skin, and the fluctuation to be felt on touching it.' We have some doubts whether the disease in question be such as to render this practice fo neceffary as our author imagines it; for it is fcarcely ever, we believe, attended with danger, and even feldom requires the application of medicine; we should suppose it, therefore, not very likely to become general. But as to the matter of fact, the pamphlet is written with such apparent ingenuoufnefs, that though it refts upon the credibility of one person, we do not hesitate to admit it; our opinion of the author being at the fame time rendered more favourable by the large and refpectable lift of fubfcribers prefixed to it. ART. X. P. Philofophical Tranfactions of the Royal Society of London. Vol. LXXX, for the Year 1790. Part 1ft. 4to. 270 pages, with 26 pages of meteorological Journal for the Year 1789, and 15 plates. Price 8s. fewed. Davis and Elmfley. 1790. Art. 1. Account of the Discovery of a fixth and feventh Satellite of the Planet Saturn; with Remarks on the Conftruction of its Ring, its Atmosphere, its Rotation on an Axis, and its pheroidical Figure. By William Herfchel, L. L. D. F. R. S. This paper contains an enumeration of various interesting obfervations made on a celeftial object not eafily reached by the telescopes of other aftronomers, in fuch a manner as to add to the facts of which we have been in poffeffion for the century paft. The new facts exhibited by this excellent and moft indefatigable aftronomer, are the following. The black difk or belt upon the ring of Saturn is not in the middle of its breadth, nor is the ring fubdivided by many fuch lines as has been reprefented in various treatises of aftronomy; but there is one fingle dark confiderably broad line, belt, or zone, upon the ring which the Doctor has always permanently found in the place where it is reprefented in figure; that is to fay, about one-third of the breadth of the ring from its outer edge. This, however, relates to the northern plane of the ring, on which he has not obferved any variations of colour and figure like the belts of Jupiter, or of Saturn. So that the zone is moft probably owing to fome permanent conftruction in the furface of the ring itself. Yet it is not the fhadow of a chain of mountains, because its appearance does not vary with its relative pofition to the fun, as fuch a fhadow muft do. Dr. Herfchel hefitates concerning the furmife of a divifion of the ring in this place, as well as from fome fpeculative reafons, as because it is beft to fufpend our judgment until the question fhall be decided, by the occultation of fome fixed ftar, which may be seen as well through this interfticę terftice, if it really be one, as between the ring and the body of Saturn. Much information will likewife be derived from obfervations upon the fouthern plane of the ring, which we fuppofe the Doctor has by this time made. The light of the ring of Saturn is generally brighter than that of the planet: a circumftance which probably arifes from the planet being environed with an atmosphere of confiderable denfity, while the ring itfelf has little or none. The extreme thinnefs of this appendage is one of its moft remarkable properties, and is fhewn by a variety of obfervations. In particular, on the 29th of Auguft, the third fatellite was upon the ring near the end of the preceding arm, and the Doctor's remark at the time was, that the arm feemed not to be the fourth, or at least not the third part of the diameter of the fatellite, which in the fituation it was, he took to be lefs than one fingle fecond in diameter. Hence it appears that the thickness of the outward part of the ring is about part of the diameter of Saturn. The bifection of the fatellites by the ring, likewife evince its extreme thinnefs, though there is a confiderable fufpicion that the refraction of light through fome very rare atmofphere on the two planes of the ring, may enlarge the apparent diameters of the fatellites in fuch pofitions. From the obfervation of thofe changes in the ring which other aftronomers have fuppofed to be luminous points and protuberances, but which he finds to confift of the fatellites. themselves, in their various pofitions, the Doctor has difcovered two more of these attendant planets, which had hitherto escaped notice on account of their little distance from the planet, and their faintnefs, the latter of which is partly to be afcribed to their fmallnefs, and partly to being fo near the light of the ring and difk of Saturn. The following account is in the Doctor's words. By comparing together many obfervations of the fixth fatellite, I find that it compleats a fidereal revolution about its pri mary in one day, eight hours, fifty-three minutes, and nine feconds. And if we fuppofe with Mr. De Lalande, that the fourth is at the mean diftance of 3' from the centre of Saturn, and performs one revolution in 15 d. 22 h. 34 38", we find the diffance of the fixth, by Kepler's law, to be 35,058. Its light is confiderably ftrong, but not equal to that of the first fatellite; for, on the 20th of October, at 19 h. 56′ 46", the firft, notwithstanding it was nearer the planet than the fixth, was ftill vifibly brighter than the latter. It would, however, be worth while to try whe ther a good achromatic telefcope, of a large aperture, might not poffibly fhew it at the time of its greatest distance from the planet, and when no other fatellite is near; that is, provided it will fhew the other five fatellites with great cafe, as otherwife there will be no reafon to expect it should flew the fixth. |