TO THE SECOND VOLUME. THE Editors have succeeded in their efforts to establish this Periodical Work on Medicine, &c. on the same plan as the Gazette de Santé of Paris, far beyond their most sanguine expectations and, notwithstanding the extensive circulation it has experienced, they have the gratification, daily, to receive numerous proofs of the increasing demand and satisfaction of their readers, as their Work advances. In return for this most flattering mark of public favour, neither labour nor expense on their part shall be spared, to render the Monthly Gazette of Health useful and entertaining: and as they can number among their friends some of the most active as well as most enlightened Practitioners and Philosophers of the age, they flatter themselves that the credit of their Journal will continue to advance with its age. A Work instituted as much for the purpose of exposing the artifices of Nostrum-Mongers, and the Medical Ignorance of Practitioners, as for communicating all new discoveries which are likely to prove useful to the public, will, of course, meet with much opposition. In giving the Composition of Advertised Remedies, or Proprietary Medicines, and commenting on their virtues and on the artifices of the Practitioners, which they have denominated Irregular Quacks; they have endeavoured to the utmost of their abilities to be just:-if, among their numerous readers, there are any that may think the Editors have commented with too much severity on the practices and qualification of those Irregular Quacks, who have the effrontery to style themselves regular Physicians, they entreat them to consider well the nature of the traffic they have condemned. The man who is capable of cultivating a connection for the purpose of making merchandise of it, during the period of sickness, and of tampering with the lives of his best friends, for the sake of lucre, is surely as contemptible a character as can exist in kuman nature, and to comment on such conduct with indifference requires more apathy than the Editors possess.-It has been said, that many of these Medical pretenders are men of great classical learning, but so far from such acquirement being an extenuation, they confess, in their opinion, it renders their conduct more black and detestable, because that education should have taught them better. Some of this class have dared to assert, that the object of the Editors is to write down Classical Learning: that they are actuated by any such motive they positively deny-on the contrary, they entertain the highest respect for the writings of the Antients, as is evident by their frequent quotations, and they allow that no man unacquainted with them is entitled to the denomination of a Physician; but to enable a man to discharge the duty of a Physician with justice to his Patients, they contend, that a knowledge of modern Medicine is not of less importance. In modern times Medicine has undergone a complete revolution. Chemistry, a very important branch, is an entire new Science.Surgery, instead of being confined to manual operations, and of being practised by ignorant men, is cultivated on scientific principles, and is brought to that degree of perfection as to form an entire new feature in the history of Medicine. Our acquaintance with the structure of the human body, and the functions of the different organs, and the properties of Drugs, is also more perfect; and unless a man be conversant with the present state of Medicine, the Editors cannot allow that he is qualified to exercise the important office of Physician, although he be thoroughly acquainted with all the works of the Ancients that are in existence, and capable of reading them in their original language. These men come forward with a haughty mein, and a scornful look of self-importance, and boast of their knowledge of the dead Languages.-Behind this wretched affectation of learning they entrench themselves, and endeavour to prove, with the absurd parade of a scholar, their immense utility to the Physician. -Greek -Greek-Latin-Latin,-is the bulwark which they imagine is to impose silence upon unenlightened reasoners, to strike the Apothecary with awe and submission, and to command the complete confidence of the public!!! They are able to discover the elegance of Hippocrates and his followers, the polished eloqunce of Galen--the expressive terseness of Aretaus-the Augustian elegance of Celsus-the barbarisms of Cœlius, &c. We do not mean to infer that a knowledge of these languages is useless, but we have no hesitation in asserting, that the advocates for them have not formed a right conception of their real value. The Editors enquire of the sticklers for this knowledge, in what does its superiority consist? Are not the English versions of the antient writers correct-and if correct, are not the opinions of these writers as clearly defined in the one as the other? If a practitioner be acquainted with their opinions and doctrines, can it be of any consequence whether he learnt them in Greek, Latin or English? The Grecian or the Latinist may say that they have lost the beauties of the original, they have lost all the indefinite graces which cannot be diffused in a translation--but do those who have studied the works of Xenophon, Tacitus, Heredotus, &c. in the original, more closely follow their virtues, or feel a greater detestation of vice than those who have read the English translations? : If an accurate idea of the opinions of Authors is only to be obtained by reading their Works in the language in which they are published, a knowledge of the Arabic, the Hebrew and all the living Languages, are as necessary as those of Greek and Latin, with which these Classical Physicians do not pretend to be acquainted. But if the practice of Medicine requires, as in our humble opinion it does, the active exertions of the intellectual powers in their full energy, it will at once be obvious, that the study of the languages, by overloading the mind, must prove injurious and hence we find that the first geniuses this country has produced, were unacquainted with them.Shakspeare and Burns knew them not; and have we any reason to regret they did not? John Hunter, Davy, and Pott, were also ignorant of them; and will any man say that these Luminaries in the medical world would have exerted themselves more vigorously if they had? To the Divine and the Lawyer they are really useful and necessary, but to Practitioners in Medicine they are only employed as a cloak for ignorance. The science of Chemistry, as we have already observed, is a new creation. Many new names and terms of course are introduced, and what can be more, ridiculous than to add new words to a dead language? To illustrate the folly of this, we need only notice one word, the last new name for the vegetable alkaline salt, viz. Potash, so distinguished because it is made from the ashes of burnt vegetables, by boiling them in a pot. The modern Latin name for this article is Pot-assa!! Thus the English word Pot is continued, and assa is added, as the Latin for ashes!! Things, and not words, should be the primary concern of Physicians, and it would be folly to say that the former are not to be obtained as well in an English as in a Latin or Greek dress. Knowledge may be considered under two different points of view, viz. its acquisition, and its application. These two are quite distinct, for there are some who store up mines of intellectual lore, and have not the talent to bring it into circulation. Knowledge is, in fact, nothing but an aggregation of ideas, derived from experience, from books,. and from reflection. The consciousness of any thing is an idea, and the question is, not how this consciousness is acquired, but whether it be actually acquired. For example, a Linguist reads in Tacitus, obstrectatio et livor pronis auribus accipiuntur, and the man unacquainted with the language reads in the version, “envy and detraction are willingly received. The former reads in Senecca, curæ leves loquunter, ingentes stupent; the latter, light sorrows are clamorous- -severe ones are dumb, &c. &c. Is not the moral truth of the oue or the other not as perfectly possessed, relished, and understood by both? What then is there so all-commanding in the dead languages, that our native idiom is to be degraded, as fit only for transacting our daily duties ? The affectation of scholars has produced a blind resignation of sober faculties, scholars, who, themselves destitute of natural powers, seek to enhance the reputation of what they have acquired, and magnify their own pursuits, like the tanner, the stone-mason, and the carpenter in the fable, who were respectively for having the walls of their town made of leather, stone, and wood.— That the knowledge of Languages is an ornament to the edifice of Genius, the Editors do not deny; but when it exists solitary in a barren mind, which produces not one indigenous plant, which bears not in a flourishing manner whatever is transplanted into it, it is at best a very humble sort of merit. Such men can aspire no higher than to the poor applause of a diligence in which every person can become their competitor; and many whose intellects are below mediocrity may bear away the laurel. If a man can boast of the empty fame of knowing two or three words for the same idea, the conclusion is, he possesses a mind too weak for philosophical pursuits. Some medical friends of this work have objected to the publication of the prescriptions of physicians and surgeons in the English language, because they imagine the coufidence of their patients in the remedies will thereby be diminished. A Prescription is the property of the person who pays for it, and in general its full value is given for it; if a subscriber desires the Editors to give a translation of a prescription for the benefit of the Public, they cannot, consistent with the avowed object of their work, refuse it. Men in different states of society, and in different ages, take very different views of the same object. Some time ago it was the practice in this country for every person to say his prayers in a dead language, no matter whether he knew any thing of it or not. This practice, though sacred in the eyes of our ancestors, appears very ridiculous to us, and doubtless some part of the present mode of treating diseases, which to us is rational, will appear absurd to posterity. If the state of medicine be such as to render mystical characters and a dead language necessary, it cannot be worthy the attention of men of science; and when our non-medical Readers consider that the compounding of prescriptions is entrusted by apothecaries to their shop-boys, they will agree with us, that instead of a dead language they should be written in as plain and obvious terms as possible. The Editors are desirous to divest the science of all mystery, and thereby to convince the public that it is brought to such a degree of perfection as to render disguise unnecessary. But where are the men who will dare to give assistance to cleanse this augean stable? It will require an Herculean hand, and the Editors do not flatter themselves that all they can do in a work of this kind will lessen the labour. In exposing the traffic, they hope that their time is not misspent. Some of the Gentlemen whose practices the Editors have exposed, have had the audacity to insinuate, that they are actuated by some interested motives. That they have any private interest to promote by the publication, they also positively deny. If they were influenced by any such consideration they would have pursued an opposite course. The work is instituted for public benefit, and to place the Profession on a more honourable foundation, and in conducting it, the Editors have nothing else in view, |