young men of the stamp and abilities generally found there, is perfectly hopeless. We are sorry to use so strong a term, but we have thought upon the subject long enough, and our opinions have been backed by several men of much more extended experience than ourselves. If Sanskrit is to remain compulsory, two if not three of the subjects, at present taught, must give way before it. At present the knowledge of Sanskrit, which nine-tenths of the Men bring out to India to assist them in mastering the Bengali, the Hindi, or the Mahratta, is exactly similar to that of a boy who should be set down to learn two or three hundred words of Latin, in order that such a smattering might be useful to him when he comes to try his hand at either French or Italian.

We regret that, on this point, we should differ so widely from Mr. Williams, and we gladly turn from the smaller sphere of College life to the benefit which we believe he has conferred on the cause of Oriental Literature in general. The Graduate of Oxford or of Cambridge may, if desirous of attaining any knowledge of Orientals, turn to Mr. Williams's book without any feeling of dismay.

If the study of Orientals is ever to increase, it will be by aid of books constructed on the present plan. Mr. Williams, we understand, is again at work, indefatigible in the same field of research, and we shall hope to hail him hereafter as one to whom Orientalism owes a lasting debt, who neither exalts his favourite study above the purity of Classical Tongues, nor allows the quibbles and alliterations of later authors to be confounded with the pure and often excellent poetry of the Ramayana and the Mahabharat, but, as applied to the East India College, our views are unalterable; and as the mastery, or even a competent knowledge of the seven subjects there taught, is a hopeless case, we leave it to our readers to judge whether Sanskrit is of such paramount importance as to usurp the field in preference to others; apart from this consideration, we must heartily congratulate Mr. Williams on the appearance of his Grammar, and shall be ready to welcome his re-appearance in the same field, and that, we hope, at no very distant day.

Observations on the Nature and Treatment of Cholera, by T. Hastings, Esq. M. R. C. S. Bengal Medical Service, Calcutta, Ostell and Lepage, 1846.

WE notice the Pamphlet of Mr. Hastings more, on account of the universal interest of the subject of which he treats, than, on account of any particular importance or novelty in the views and practice which be advocates. Indeed, the author's pretensions are very moderate, and his object, which we heartily second, is to direct fresh attention to the investigation of the nature and treatment of the awful Disease. Had Mr. Hastings followed up his suggestions by a history of his own experience in the treatment of the Disease, either in Natives or Europeans,

his remarks would be more valuable; and we encourage him to supply the deficiency in a future report. It would be well if our Civil and Military Surgeons could be persuaded oftener to venture themselves in print. They would not have to complain of severe criticism. Dr. MacGregor's, Journal in the North West, meets with far too little support from the Profession, whether in the way of contributions of material, or money. Whether from personal or other causes we do not know, but some of the ablest men in India, in extensive European practice, contribute nothing.

Narratives of observations, and histories of epidemics are much wanted, and while India abounds in good Medical and Surgical practitioners, there is a great deficiency of every sort of Medical writers. This is possibly the effect of reaction and improved general education. A few years since, monographs on every disease under the sun, inundated the shops of the book-sellers in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Infallible remedies were most numerous for those diseases which were well known to be the least curable, and the author who had seen the least of any given disease promised his patients the most success -remembering, we suppose, the hint of the Vicar of Wakefield, who told his daughters they were simpletons for giving their crown to the Gipsey who promised them only a Baronet and a Squire for husbands, whereas he would have promised them a Prince and a Nabob for the same money.

But to return to the subject of Cholera-Mr. Hastings recommends the hot bath of 110° Fahrenheit, or hotter in the 1st stage of attack, in contra distinction to the warm bath, and with a view to arouse the system and render it susceptible to the medicinal agents afterwards to be administered. Perhaps the hot bath is worthy of further trial, though we must warn Mr. Hastings that it has been tried by many and not approved. Dr. J. Mouat tried baths at Berhampore in 1828, in H. M's. 14th Regt.

In the transactions of the Medical Society for that year, an able paper appeared from the pen of that Gentleman, now Surgeon of H. M's. 13th Hussars, one of the most distinguished medical veterans of the army. Dr. Mouat then remarked that he had little more satisfactory to say of the pathology and treatment of the Disease than when he first saw it soon after his arrival in India, in 1817. Thirty years have now elapsed, and in 1847, though many gloomy pages have been added to the History of this Scourge, we have the same melancholy confession to repeat regarding its treatment. Numberless specifics have started and died away, and, about two years ago, it was confidently proposed that Croton Oil in large doses with Hill Opium was so far worthy of confidence that a practitioner failing to employ it, and losing a patient, might tax himself with homicide.

The epidemic of 1845 at Subathu, Kussowli, Umballa, Feroze pore Lúdiana and Meerut, all stations for European troops, shewed the fallacy of the claims of Croton oil to any thing more, than an average place with other medicines. Dr. Dempster and Dr. Steel, two of our most skilful practitioners in the North West, gave the most careful trial

to it in the way laid down by Dr. MacGregor, and so did many others -while the statistics of mortality in the 1st Bengal Fusiliers shew that Dr. MacGregor's own practice with it, was not more successful than that of others, with other drugs. At Meerut the sporadic cases of Cholera are remarkably tractable, and so they used to be at Kurnaul-and when the epidemic reached Meerut, in 1845, it raged less virulently than at other places. It is worthy of note too, that natives are more easily cured than Europeans, and thus there is much encouragement both for the faculty and the laity, to hasten to the aid of poor natives.

Indeed the energy and promptitude and tact with which any given remedy is plied, have as much to do with successful practice as the choice of the remedy in the first instance. When a case appears, every adjunct at hand should be laid under contribution, with a view, as Mr. Hasting's explains, to rouse the nerves of organic life without delay, and before they refuse to respond. After a while the stomach becomes as insensible as a "Mussuk" or a dried bladder. That practitioner will be the most successful, who is most the man of

resources.

It is little to one's credit to plead, if I had had this or that the result would have been different. The man of resources will create means and appliances, if he does not find them, and in one sense will fulfil the proverbial impossibility of making silk purses out of sow's ears.-No head of a family should be without a packet of Cholera Medicines, or neglect to make himself acquainted with the way to administer them, and he should administer them then and there, avoiding to send the patient any distance, or sending any distance for a more eligible material. The following is a summary of what is believed by Dr. Copland, Professor of Medicine in the University College, London, to be the present sense of the profession, regarding Cholera. The passage occurs in a recent number of his Dictionary of medicine, and as it is endorsed by the leading Medical Journals in Great Britain, deserves transcribing in this place for the information of India.

"I conclude this part of the inquiry by stating the inferences which may be drawn from an extensive view of what is known of this pestilence, as it has appeared in Asia and in Europe, and from intimate observation of its phenomena, as they lead to various considerations calcu'lated to arrest its progress, and to remedy it when an attack has 'not proceeded too far in the destructive processes, in which it has been shewn to terminate. A. The pestilential cholera seems to have 'been propagated by an animal miasm or effluvium of a peculiar kind, emanating from the bodies of the affected; and this effluvium being inhaled with the air into the lungs paralyses their organs, and acts as a poison on the class of nerves which supplies the respiratory, the 'assimilating, the circulating and secreting viscera, vitiating also the whole mass of blood, and thereby occasioning a specific disease, 'which, in its turn gives rise to an effluvium similar to that, in which ' itself originated; which also in like manner perpetuates its kind ' under the favourable circumstances of predisposition, aerial vicissi'tudes, &c.,-and thus a specific form of disease is propagated far

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and wide, as long as predisposing, concurrent, and determining causes favour its propagation. B. The morbid impression of this effluvium is poison upon the nerves of organic life, and probably the effects of its introduction into the current of the circulation, are of a sedative kind, rapidly destroying the vital energy of the ⚫ former, and vitiating the latter, and thereby giving rise to the characteristic phenomena of the malady. C. The impression of the ⚫ effluvium on the organic class of nerves, and the vitiated state of the blood may be viewed as the proximate cause, not only of the ⚫ disturbance evinced by the respiratory, the secreting, the assimilating and the circulating functions, but also of the morbid actions of the ⚫ stomach and bowels, and the copious serous discharges from their organs as well as of the muscular spasms, the sinking of all the vital and animal powers, of the shrunk and collapsed state of the surface of the body, of the black thick state of the blood and of the rapid depression of the animal temperature. D. The state of the perspiration and skin ⚫ and the discharge of the serous portion of the blood by the stomach and bowels imparting the peculiar appearance of the evacuations, pro⚫ceed from the alteration primarily produced in the vitality of the frame, and in the condition of the blood, and it is chiefly through the medium ⚫ of the cutaneous surface of the liver, of the kidneys, and of the mucous ⚫ membranes, assisted, perhaps, also by the other secreting viscera, that the morbid change of the blood is remedied, and impurities removed from it. E. The advanced Stages, of the consecutive or febrile symp⚫toms of the disease, whether those, chiefly depending upon the state of ⚫ the nervous functions, or of the circulation within the brain, or proceeding from the condition of the abdominal viscera, arise partly from the shock received by, and the depression of the vital energy of the frame in the early stage, and partly, if not chiefly, from the alterations which had taken place in the blood, during the early stages of the malady. F. The effluvium or siminium which propagates the distemper, is generated by the progress of the changes produced in the blood, and is emanated or discharged from the mucous surfaces of the lungs, and digestive canal, and from the cutaneous surface, along with their respective exhalations and secretions; and this siminium by contaminating the surrounding air, or woollen clothes and animal products, capable of attracting and retaining for a while animal effluvium, affects those of the healthy, who are predisposed, either constitutionally or by antecedent, concomitant, or determining influences, or on whom this efficient agent acts in an intense or concentrated form, or is aided by accessory or concurrent causes."

W. Hastings, in his little brochure on the subject, after indicating the general character of cholera, and directing attention to the Anatomy and Physiology of the sympathetic nervous system, proceeds with his deductions regarding the primary seat of the disease. His observations on this head may here be quoted as a favourable specimen of his mode of treating the general subject:—

"The most striking feature of cholera, is its remarkably fatal rapidity. On seeing this, one cannot help putting the question,-To what is it owing?

Is the overwhelming prostration a part and parcel of the disease, in fact a symptom; or is it only the effect of other symptoms? e. g. the sickness and purging? Again, one may ask, would sickness and vomiting, however violent, arising from mere functional derangement of the mucous surfaces of the stomach and intestines, bring on this sudden and deadly collapse ? Moreover in many cases, the vomiting and purging are comparatively slight; while in the same instances, the prostration is as great, or even greater. Again how is it, that there is such a sudden and complete change in the secretion of the entire intestinal canal? Supposing, the function originally disordered, would it be likely to be suceeeded by such rapidly fatal annihilation? I think not. To what then can it be attributed? To a morbid impression upon the very source, upon which the integrity and maintenance of every vegetative function, and life itself, depends, viz., to a withdrawal (if I may use the expression) of the healthy amount of stimulus usually afforded by the sympathetic nervous system.

The liver, the stomach, the intestines, the kidneys, the bladder, are all largely supplied from this system of nerves, and we find them all, in this disease, in a state of partial death, and necessarily almost insensible to impressions from remedies however powerful. The heart too, which is also indebted to this system, becomes languid and feeble; succeeded by a torpid circulation, a cold skin, and still colder extremities. At length, the nervous system and the arterial reciprocally act upon each other; the insensibility of the former being increased by the feebleness of the latter, and vice versa. The lungs scarcely perform their office, either as organs of respiration or for purification of the blood, greatly to the detriment of the brain and entire nervous system, and the body generally.

I am not aware that any experiments could be performed to bear out the truth of my notion of the pathology of cholera. One can, I think, only reason on the subject from a knowledge of the anatomy of the nervous system and its physiology, (as far as known) and from the symptoms of the disease. Examination of the bodies of persons who have died of cholera, gives us no assistance in our search for the primary cause; it shews us clearly enough the ravages committed; the effects produced by the disease; but we are as ignorant as ever, as to why the change from health to disease should be so sudden and so fatal.

The explanation I believe to be this. We have seen that every organ, the healthy and regular performance of whose function is necessary for the maintenance of life, is either altogether or largely indebted to the sympathetic nervous system for its nerves; and that this system, though in some respects distinct, is only partially independent of the brain and spinal cord, and that the latter are the main source whence the power of the former, (of the organic nerves,) is gradually renovated. We have seen that the nerve is charged, as it were with nervous power by the brain and spinal cord, and that, when once charged, it continues to emit this influence, in a manner peculiar to itself. This nervous system then, being predisposed, becomes suddenly morbidly impressed and excited; not absolutely and organically changed; but unable either to receive or to transmit the nervous power, I have above alluded to: the consequence of which is, (as might be expected) a sudden and almost complete destruction of the entire organization of the body. The above I believe to be the primary seat of the disease, though of course a rapid increase to the disorder is brought about by the effect on the entire nervous and arterial systems, the reciprocal action of which serves but to complete the revolution already set up in the entire system.

If this explanation be admitted, the rapidity and suddeness of the disease