ever contrary our general report may be to the expectation of the author, he may be affured that it is made by thofe who know him not, and have no motive whatever, but regard to truth and found criticifm, for deciding a fingle point in his remarks in one way or another.

ART. XVI. An Account of a new and fuccefsful Method of treating thofe Affections which arife from the Poifon of Lead; to which are added General Obfervations on the internal Ufe of Lead as a Medicine. By Henry Clutterbuck, Member of the Corporation of Surgeons, and Surgeon to the Royal Univerfal Difpenfary. 8vo. pp. 69. 2s. T. Booley. 1794.

THE

HERE are few difeafes more diftreffing, obftinate, and untractable, than thofe to which painters, and perfons employed in manufacturing and working with lead, are liable. Any attempt, therefore, to improve the method of treating them, will be favourably received. And, although the opportunities this author has had of trying the effects of his medicine, have not been fufficiently numerous to eftablifh its character as a specific against thefe difeafes (in which light he seems to confider it) the fuccefs he experienced in the few cafes in which it was adminiftered, juftifies his laying it before the public. In general, workmen are feldom affected by the metal, he obferves, until they have been employed in ufing and handling it, three or four years about this period they become pale and fallow, their appetites and digeftion are impaired, and they are frequently difturbed in the night, by cramps in the mufcles and the extremities. They are coftive, and are tormented with violent fits of cholic. Weakness, and at length, total lofs of action in the mufcles of the hands and wrifts fucceed, with fymptoms of general debility. As thefe fymptoms indicate a want of energy in the muscles and nerves, the author was induced to try the effect of mercury, which is known to poffefs great ftimulant powers, and to induce extreme irritability in the fyftem. He has related five cafes, in all of which the patients were cured, or greatly relieved, by this medicine. We shall felect the fifth, which is delivered more at length than the others, and will convey the most perfect idea of his mode of treating the difeafe.

age.

"The patient, Thomas Caufield, was a painter, twenty-four years of He had worked at this bufinefs for eleven years. During the first feven years he felt no ill effect from his employment; after

which he began to be affected with frequent cholics, attended with obftinate coltivenefs; which complaints continued to torment him at times for three or four years. About eight weeks before he became a patient at the difpenfary, he perceived a weakness in his right hand, in which he ufually held the brufh. This foon increafed to fuch a degree as to prevent his ufing it altogether. He frequently suffered much from cramps in the legs, and has, two or three times in the laft three years, after feveral fits of the cholic, been attacked with great pain, rednefs, and fwelling of the feet and ankles, continuing for fome days; during the continuance of which, his bowels were always entirely relieved.

"He was directed to rub into the wrifts, two fcruples of the ung. hydrarg. fort. In about a week all his fymptoms were much relieved, and at the end of a fortnight, finding the itrength of his right hand fufficiently reftored, he difcontinued the medicine, and refumed his former employment. A month afterward he returned to the difpenfary. The paralytic affection of the right hand had returned, together with the painful and coftive ftate of the bowels. Eeing unable to hold the brash with the right hand, he continued to work with the left, which in a little time became paralytic as the other. He was now treated in the common way, with purgatives of the most active kind, stimulants and opiates. From thefe he got hardly temporary relief. He never was free from violent pain in his bowels, for twentyfour hours together, and the state of his hands was not in the lealt mended.

"On the twentieth of September I ordered him a grain of calomel night and morning, continuing the opiate medicine. The fecond day after taking the calomel he had two natural ftools, and the pain in his bowels was much abated. On the third day his feet and ankles became painful, fwelled, red, and fhining. The pain began in the great toe and spread backward to the ankle, refembling in all refpects an attack of the gout; raging particularly in the early part of the night, and having the fame remiffion towards the morning. This pain and fwelling continued for about ten days, going off gradually, and during all this time he had regular evacuations, and was entirely free from pain in his bowels. The weak nefs of the hands continued just as before; but the calomel not having affected the mouth, was omitted, and he was directed to rub into the wrifts a drachm of mercurial ointment every evening. In about ten days more, the mouth became fore, and the weakness of the hands was much leffened. He .perfifted in this plan; and at the end of a month, had recovered the entire ufe of his hands, and had been altogether free from pain and coftiveness, fince he firft began to take the calomel."

As mercury is generally reforted to in difficult and intricate. cafes, it may feem wonderful, the author fays, that it has never before been employed in this difeafe. This may have been occafioned, he thinks, from fome general fimilitude that has been obferved, between the difeafes brought on by mercury and other metals, and thofe induced by the poifon of lead. In

this remark the author is not correct, as Ramazzini*, in his popular work, De Morbis Artificum, fays, he has experienced the most beneficial effects from mercurial and chalybeate medicines, in the worft ftages of the difeafe; and we prefume there are few practitioners who have not had recourfe to calomel, to obviate coftiveness, one of its moft conftant and troublesome fymptoms. But the author is, we believe, the first person who ever propofed rubbing mercurial ointment upon the skin, until it produced its specific effect upon the conftitution, with a view to relieve the paralytic affection of the limbs. Yet although he has, ingenioufly enough, marked the diftinction. between the trembling of the limbs, to which gilders and perfons using mercury are fubjected, and the weakness induced by the poifon of lead, yet we confefs ourfelves unable to comprehend, how a drug, which although poffeffed of ftimulant powers, certainly debilitates to a great degree, fhould a remedy for debility occafioned by another poifon. This queftion will be folved by future experiments. There is a fixth cafe related by Dr. Bradley, in which, by the early exhibition of mercury, the effects of the poifon of lead feem to have been obviated.

prove

'ART. XVII. The Adventures of Telemachus the Son of Ulysses, from the French of Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, by the late John Hawkefworth, L. L. D. Corrected and Revised by G. Gregory, D. D. joint Evening Preacher at the Foundling Hofpital, and Author of Effays Hiftorical and Moral, Sc. with a Life of the Author, and a Complete Index, Hiftorical and Geographical, embellished with Twelve Elegant Engravings, in 2 vol. 4to. 11. 16s. Kearfley, 1795.

TELEMACHUS has been tranflated with greater or lefs

fucefs into every European language; and it is a matter of fome credit to the tafte and feeling of the prefent age, that amidit convulfions which alike menace fcience and morality, the performance is ftill popular and still acceptable. Notwithstanding our admiration of the original, it would not be our office to do more than fimply notice its republication, unlefs it came before us with claims of novelty in fome fhape or other. This, is however the cafe in the prefent inftance.

Ramazzini Opera Omnia, p. 497.

The

The reader is prefented with a new and original life of Fenelon, deduced from the best and most authentic fources, arranged with perfpicuity, and written with confiderable elegance. There is alfo an index, which is always ufeful, and will be found particularly fo in the prefent publication, to young readers. The talents of the editor for fuch an undertaking have been repeatedly tried, and with fuccefs adequate to his diligence and learning. He has carefully compared the translation of Dr. Hawkefworth with the original French, and has rectified fuch paffages as appeared to him inadequately rendered. The work is prefented to the public with all the advantages of the prefs, and with twelve engravings, which are, however, executed with very unequal degrees of excellence.

ART. XVIII. Twenty Practical Sermons, entitled the Philanthropic Monitor, by the Rev. W. M. Trinder, L. L. B. and M. D. 8vo. 6s. Longman. 1793.

THE

HE fermons here prefented to the public were (as we learn from the preface) originally fent out in periodical numbers, under the title of the Philanthropic Monitor; and the preffure of expence confined the author to twenty, which are here collected. We lament that a defign fo laudable, as that which profeffes to excite the attention of mankind to their best interefts, fhould have experienced any failure; and we fincerely hope, that the author may yet find his recompence in the diffemination of his benevolent Monitor.

The fubjects upon whict: thefe difcourfes turn, are as follows 1. 2. On Christ's Yoke. 3. The Danger of Sin. 4. Reftitution. 5. 6. On Confolation in Adverfity. 7. On Industry. 8. Vanity. 9. Death. 10. Providence. 11. Prayer. 12. Forgiveness. 13. Confcience. 14. Obedience. 15. The Deity. 16. Chrit's Advent. 17. Chrift's Miraculous Power. 18. Sons of God. 19. On the Loft Sheep and the Loft Piece of Money. 20. On the Marriage of the King's Son. We shall lay before our readers an extract from the 6h difcourfe, upon adverfity; which we conceive to afford no unfavourable fpecimen of the work.

To affert that adverfity is, in all cafes, God's judgment against finners would be as unwarrantable as to fay that it never is. Did we fuppofe mankind to deferve all the miferies that have befallen them, we should degrade human nature below its deferts, and hardly believe that fuch worthless creatures as the human could ever be elected out of the creation, as the favourites of heaven. Confider the dreadful woes of flavery, and how many men, women, and innocent chil

dren are and have been kidnapped, and dragged into it. Confider all the dreadful miferies of war, and the devaftations thereof; how many perfons have been ruined by accidents unforeseen, by injustice, by fraud, and oppreffion; how niany have, from their infancy, endured the torments of difeafe, or laboured under fuch bodily disadvantages and infirmities, as render life tedious and uneafy. Behold the poor melancholy maniac in his folitary cell; does his forrow, his inexpreffible mifery arife from guilt! Confider the many maffacres, perfecutions, and troubles, which falfe religion has, from time to time, authorized, and occafioned. Surely the wretched victims of thefe cruelties did not deferve them; and, therefore, it may be asked, why cruelty and evil is permitted to rage, and to torment mankind? Alas! our knowledge is very limited; we fee but as through a glafs darkly; we perceive, indeed, the propriety of punishment for fin, and the neceffity of a fevere difcipline for our improvement in virtue; but we fee no further; yet it is certain that God is good that although there is much mifery, yet there is much happiness in the world that all of us, even the moft afflicted, have fome enjoyments, fome fatisfactions, fome gleams of dawning comfort. It is certain that God delights not in the infelicity of his creatures, for if he did, as his power is infinite and almighty, we fhould all be unhappy, and continually fo, without relief or refpite; then, inftead of a mixture of good and evil, nought but horror, mifery, and torment, would be feen and felt; whereas the fact is, that good people are peculiarly comforted and encouraged, and they are far happier than the wicked in parallel circumftances: but leaving this fpeculation concerning the permiffion of evil, which is beyond the reach of our clouded understanding, let us profit from what we know, and attend to the eafy, but important leffons that adverfity, as a corrector of vice, and a teacher of virtue, prefents to us but firft let me afk, When fhall the unrighteous man acknowledge the error of his way, and refolve to reform this life?— Not when in the midst of his profperity: when he revels in the house of feafting, when fenfitive appetites inflame his foul, when eafy and alluring pleafures Swim around him like the fabled Naiads of the ftream; hut when the folid earth fhakes under him, when heaven's tremendous thunder rolls above his head, when chilling poverty, fudden difappointment, and inevitable difgrace afflict him, then he will fee his faultinefs, his wretchednefs, his fallen ftate, his neceffary dependence on Almighty God;-then, O mighty privilege! then, if he repent and reform, he fhall hear, even in the midft of the ftorms that rage around him, the ftill fmall voice that fhall speak peace and joy to his troubled and diftempered foul." P. 71.

The notes to this paffage contain fome accounts of Slavery, which we hope are exaggerated.

Of thefe Sermons, collectively, we must remark, that they are (as will have appeared from the extract) written in a ftyle of general fimplicity, and difcover a zeal for the interefts of religion which dues honour to the author's piety. The reafoning is of a fpecies which unites the argumentative and the

pathetic,