has been irrecoverably damaged by the extensive suppuration that has ensued. Sir H. Hardinge tells us that the Portuguese method of punishment, that of striking the culprit upon the back with the flat of the sword, is apt to be followed by spitting of blood, and other maladies. The same remark is made by Dr. Kirckhoff in reference to the Dutch army, in which the cane is generally used as the instrument of punishment.

The cruel consequences of second, and still more of third and fourth, instalments of punishment, may well be conceived, when we think of the thin and tender state of the newly-formed cuticle: the first few lashes usually bring the blood in streams down the man's back. We may remark that a commanding officer, it appears, has the power of remitting any part of the punishment awarded by a regimental court-martial, but not of a general one, when the sentence has been approved of by the sovereign or his representative. In the latter case, if the man should die before the entire punishment has been inflicted, (whether this be at once or at several times,)" it must be consummated upon his lifeless and mutilated carcass.” So says Major James, in his Regimental Companion, 7th Edit. 1841:-we trust that such is not the case.

The usual application to the back after flogging is a weak solution of sugar of lead. Whenever there is very great tumefaction of the parts, there is reason to apprehend the supervention of mortification. This is one of the most troublesome and dangerous consequences of the punishment: the putrid smell, more especially in hot climates, arising from the extensive gangrenous surface, is described as being sometimes almost unsupportable alike to the patient and attendants. We have already seen that no medical man can, with certainty, predict or foresee the degree of liability of the injured parts to fall into a state of sloughing; much, very much, depends on the constitution of the patient, and other incidental circumstances.

When the sloughing and ulceration have been extensive, the cicatrized surface will sometimes remain so tender for a length of time as utterly to prevent the man wearing his cross-belts, far less carrying his knapsack. Several men have been dismissed the service in consequence.

It would seem, from Dr. Williamson's report, (Observations relative to the West India Islands, 1817,) that, in the case of the poor negroes, the integuments of the back sometimes become nearly insensible from repeated thrashings.

"By frequently punishing offenders," says he, "the parts become insensible to that laceration which tears up the skin. When that barbarous consequence is arrived at, its infliction becomes a matter of indifference to the unfortunate negro; and new sources of torture must be found out by which the commission of crime may be checked. It can scarcely be necessary to add, that such a condition of torpor in the parts to which punishment has been applied, can never be justified on any pretext; and I blush to reflect that white men should be the directors of such disgraceful deeds.-Observations relative to the West India Islands, 1817.)

"Dr. Williamson had peculiar opportunities of acquiring information on this subject, having resided in a medical capacity during fourteen years upon different plantations in Jamaica.

"Allowing that few or none die, which (says Dr. Hamilton) I believe to be the fact, immediately from punishments moderately inflicted, I know, from ex

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perience in the service, that constitutions have been considerably impaired by them. We sometimes find the body melt away into a spectre of skin and bone, from the large suppurations that have followed; nor were they ever afterwards, as long as I knew them, able to bear the same hardships as before; and they must from thence also be more incident, not only to contagious diseases, if they be in the way of them, but to other complaints to which fatigue or hardships of duty may expose them." P. 291.

Before closing our remarks, it may not be amiss to mention a professional epispastic which we find has been tried, and that too successfully, as a succedaneum for the coarse and barbarous one in common use in the army. Sir Charles Napier is the narrator.

"The commanding officer of one of the regiments in question, then stationed in Guernsey, where liquor is cheap, determined to try to put a stop to the crime of drunkenness on duty, by an appeal to the honourable feelings of soldiers, and at the same time to make drunkenness as unpleasant as possible, but without the lash. He gave out an order to say that he would not flog, but trust to the soldiers' self-respect for keeping sober on duty. Next day a man was drunk and confined. The colone!, accompanied by the surgeon, went to the guardhouse, and felt the drunkard's pulse: he was declared to be in a fever. Nothing could be more true. He was therefore put into a blanket, and four soldiers bore him through the barracks, his comrades all laughing at the care taken of him; on reaching the hospital the patient was put to bed and blistered between the shoulders, fed on bread and water for a week, and then discharged cured. He was then brought on the parade, when the commanding officer congratulated him on his recovery from the fever, and sent him to join his company, when he was laughed at and jeered by his comrades during the space of a week. Many others underwent the same treatment; but the joke, though very amusing to the sober soldiers, soon began to be none to the drunkards. There was considerable pain and uneasiness-some bread, plenty of water; but no pitying comrades-no commiseration-no mercy. The experiment was completely successful. Not a man of that regiment was flogged in Guernsey from the time the men were treated with blisters and after a fortnight there was no such thing as a man drunk for guard or parade. Now this regiment had been in an infamous state. 'Observe,' says Sir Charles, the consequence of having inefficient means. This same regiment was embarked for the Bermudas. There was at that period much drinking and much illness in these islands, rum being cheap and the blister-plaster scarce. There was no means of confinement, and the lieutenant-colonel, for want of efficient means, was obliged to use the lash, which punished without preventing drunkenness. Now the blister did prevent

it in Guernsey. So much for inefficient means."" P. 160.

Throughout the whole of his descriptions and remarks, Dr. Marshall displays a generous and enlightened feeling of condemnation of the barbarous and unjust-because unequal-punishment of flogging. There is something in it, too, positively degrading to the medical officers of the army and navy; from being messengers of mercy, they are made little better than aids of the executioner. Already has flogging been abolished among our native troops in India; nor does it exist, we believe, in the French, or in almost any of the European, armies. Without taking upon himself to say that it should be entirely given up in our public services, the general tone of our author's observations certainly tends to this result; and he strongly expresses his concurrence in the sentiments expressed by Dr. Hamilton, published upwards of fifty years ago in the following extract:—

"I wish, after all, the military laws knew no such thing as flogging, and that in place thereof some other mode of punishment could be devised less ignominious. On this head, however, I dare say nothing, it is out of my line of life, though I wish it, with all my soul, abolished, as an inhuman thing, more suiting the nature of savages, than civilized and polished nations." P. 293.

And surely there is no occupation, in which medical men can more profitably fulfil their beneficent mission, than in using all their professional influence and authority to plead the cause of the suffering and oppressed against the heartless neglect or tyrannical severity of irresponsible taskmasters. Of recent years, the fruits of enlightened medical philanthropy have been gloriously displayed in the changes already effected in our prisons and lunatic asylums, &c., and in the improved general economic treatment of our pauper population. May the same good spirit continue to animate every member of the profession, in whatever sphere he may be placed! It is thus only that our calling may justly claim to itself the proud distinction, that has been assigned to it by the eloquent orator of antiquity, of being "an art almost divine."

A MANUAL OF PHYSIOLOGY, INCLUDING PHYSIOLOGICAL ANATOMY, FOR THE USE OF THE MEDICAL STUDENT. By William B. Carpenter, M.D., F.R.S. With One Hundred and Eighty Illustrations. 12mo. pp. 582. London: Churchill, 1846.

THE present volume combines in a condensed form, the matter contained in the two larger works of Dr. Carpenter on Vegetable, Comparative, and Human Physiology; it thus presents an outline of the vital phenomena as they have been investigated up to the present time. Although this manual combines in some degree the scope of the above works, yet the author informs us, it cannot be regarded as a mere abridgment of them. As we have already noticed at some length, and with much approbation, Dr. Carpenter's Principles of Physiology (see Medico-Chirurgical Review, 1845, p. 321,) our remarks on the present occasion will be limited.

The first book, treating of General Physiology, contains a judicious sketch of the nature and objects of this science, which we would commend to the careful consideration of our junior brethren, with the conviction that it is a matter of the first consequence, to obtain a just conception of the fundamental laws, and of the scope of the inquiry in the prosecution of every branch of knowledge, but in a more especial degree as regards the most abstruse of all sciences-that of life. To him, who neglecting the natural order, commences his investigation with the individual actions of vitality, infinitely varied and complex as they are, all appears peculiar, bizarre, and obscure; and if he is satisfied to be guided by those writers who setting aside, as unconcerned with human physiology, the general laws of matter, of chemical affinity, of vegetable organization, and of comparative anatomy, he will rest in the false assumption that, living bodies in their structure and functions form an exception to the ordinary phenomena of Nature. The student of physiology is particularly prone to fall

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into one error which has often led to the most mischievous results; it is this the belief that more is known of the phenomena and essence of inorganic matter, than of those connected with organized bodies. One of the evils of this misconception has been the attempt, often made and always in vain, to determine that "ultimate fact" of organization, the essential nature of life. Well would it have been for the progress of our science, if physiologists, in place of these barren speculations, recollecting that we only know matter, whether inorganic or organic, by its qualities, had learnt to recognise that line of demarcation, which, separating natural phenomena from their efficient causes, has never yet been passed by the most eager or the profound of human observers.

Entertaining these convictions, we have perused with much satisfaction the following remarks of Dr. Carpenter:

6

"All sciences have their ultimate facts;' that is, facts for which no other cause can be assigned than the Will of the Creator. Thus, in physics, we cannot ascend above the fact of attraction (which operates according to a simple and universal law) between all masses of matter; and in chemistry, we cannot rise beyond the fact of affinity (limited by certain conditions which are not yet well understood) between the particles of different kinds of matter. When we say that we have explained any phenomenon, we merely imply that we have traced its origin to these properties, and shown that it is a necessary result of the laws according to which they operate. For the existence of the properties, and the determination of the conditions, we can give no other reason than that the Creator willed them so to be; and, in looking at the vast variety of phenomena to which they give rise, we cannot avoid being struck with the general harmony that exists amongst them, and the mutual dependence and adaptation that may be traced between them, when they are considered as portions of the general economy of Nature. There is no difference in this respect between Physiology and other sciences; except that the number of these (apparently) ultimate facts is at present greater in physiology than it is in other sciences, because we are not at present able to include them under any more general expression. Thus we find a certain peculiar endowment existing in one form of structure; and another endowment, equally peculiar, inherent in another; but we can give no reason why the structure called muscular, should possess contractility, and why the structure called nervous should be capable of generating and conveying the force which excites that contractility to action. Each of these facts, therefore, is for the present the limit to our knowledge; we can ascertain the conditions, according to which the muscular contractility, and the exciting power of the nerve, are called into operation, and can form some estimate of the amount of the forces which they generate; but we cannot see clearly that they are necessarily connected by any common tie, such as that which binds together the planetary masses, at the same time that it weighs down the bodies on the surface of the earth towards its centre." P. 15.

Another of the fallacies which still lingers in the Schools, and which, is we have said, is traceable to the too exclusive study of vital actions, is The notion that these phenomena are altogether sui generis; whilst the truth is, that the processes of the vegetative existence especially, are to a great extent dependent upon the ordinary energies of matter.

“There can be no doubt whatever," observes the author, "that, of the many changes which take place during the life, or state of vital activity, of an organized being, and which intervene between its first development and its final decay, a large proportion are effected by the agency of those forces, which operate in the inorganic world; and there is no necessity whatever for the supposition, that these forces have any other operation in the living body than they would have out of it

under similar circumstances. Thus the propulsion of the blood by the heart through the large vessels, is a phenomenon precisely analagous to the propulsion of any other liquid through a system of pipes by means of a forcing pump; and if the arrangement of the tubes, the elasticity of their walls, the contractile power of the heart, and the physical properties of the fluid, could be precisely imitated, the artificial apparatus would give us an exact representation of the actions of the real one. The motor force of the muscles upon the bones, again, operates in a mode that might be precisely represented by an arrangement of cords and levers; the peculiarity here, as in the former case, being solely in the mode in which the force is first generated. So, again, the digestive operations which take place in the stomach are capable of being closely imitated in the laboratory of the chemist; when the same solvent fluid is employed, and the same agencies of heat, motion, &c., are brought into play. Moreover we shall hereafter see reason to believe, that the peculiar form of capillary attraction, to which the term endosmose is applied, performs an important part in the changes which are continually taking place in the living body." P. 10.

The recognition of the close resemblance, and not unfrequently of the actual identity, thus displayed in the processes of the vegetative life, when compared with the ordinary phenomena of physics and chemistry, naturally suggests the inquiry how far it may be possible to refer all the actions of life to properties of matter. In discussing such a question one thing is immediately apparent, namely, that with our present knowledge, we can only argue from analogy and by inference, inasmuch as the known properties of matter are altogether insufficient to produce, for example, muscular contraction and nervous power. Dr. Carpenter has a very interesting section "On the Connexion between Vitality and Organization," which should be read throughout to realize the scope of the argument, but we will endeavour to convey in our limited space the views set forth upon this profoundly important inquiry. The author commences by observing that

"The idea that new properties may be called forth or developed by a new combination of elements, and by a new arrangement of particles, and that, consequently, the class of properties included under the general term vital is dependent upon the peculiar state of matter which is designated as organized,is so perfectly conformable to what is seen elsewhere, and is so fully sufficient to explain all observed phenomena, that it would scarcely seem necessary to use any further argument in support of it. But the notion has been entertained, that Vitality is a something superadded to matter, and that it is absurd to suppose that the phenomena of Life can be produced by any combinations of matter; and this indeed so generally prevails, that it seems desirable to carry our investigations with regard to the causes of Vital phenomena a little further." P. 33.

Dr. Carpenter, then, shows that the properties of any kind of matter, even those with which we are most familiar, require certain conditions for their manifestation; that these properties may be either latent or active, according as these conditions are or are not present; that, for example, oxygen and hydrogen have within themselves the latent property of so combining together as to form water; but this does not manifest itself so long as they are separate; nor does it manifest itself at ordinary tempera tures, when they are mingled together; but if through such a mixture w transmit an electric spark, or if we raise the temperature by the contac of a heated body, or if we simply introduce into it a portion of platinum