suspended the disease about twenty minutes, when the pain returned, with very short intervals of ease. When he saw her again, the pain was very acute, attended with fever. She had taken, just before his arrival, a drachm of the ammoniated laudanum, and he bled her to the extent of twelve ounces, which produced no beneficial effect. She vomited a fluid coloured with bile. This operation was promoted by copious draughts of warm water, after which the pain was less violent. The paroxysms becoming more severe, Mr. Hull "brushed the skin over the region of the stomach (of the space of a large blister), with nitric acid, by means of a feather, when the patient exclaimed, You are burning me! but, almost in the same breath, I am in Heaven." "The relief," says Mr. Hull, " may strictly be designated instantaneous. It was complete; delivering him from a fear of her dissolution, which he thought very likely to result from the frequent attacks of agony so severe. The nitric acid instantaneously excites considerable inflammation of the cuticle, which does not extend to the true skin. It does not corrode the cuticle, nor produce blisters. In a few days the cuticle is thrown off in patches; the healing process is generally attended with much more irritation than that from a blistering plaster. Even the most cooling ointment seems to increase the irritation; the healing process is likewise more tedious: a mild poultice agrees with it. As soon as Mr. Hull had "brushed the acid over the skin, he dabbed the part with a rag soaked in cold water, to dilute the acid that might remain, after it had effected a sufficient degree of irritation." Mr. Hull states, that he has employed the acid in the same manner in cases of rheumatism, particularly when the complaint had left an extremity and attacked the head. In such a case, we presume, he applied it to the part from whence it receded, or to an extremity. In acute attacks of spasms of the stomach, or of the intestines, the life of the patient very often depends on the speedy production of inflammation of the skin, by way of counter-irritation. In such cases, the nitric acid, (which, ir half a minute, will excite as much irritation or inflammation as a blister is capable of doing in twelve hours,) is a very important remedy. Many foreign physicians employ boiling water for this purpose. Dr. James, physician to St. George's Hospital, a practitioner of great observation and scientific attainments, has long employed a strong liquor of ammonia, to excite immediate inflammation of the skin, in cases of acute and chronic inflammation; and this remedy he has found to produce as much relief in a few minutes, as the usual stimulating liniments generally do in as many days or weeks. He has also applied it to the skin over the region of the stomach, in a case of violent pain in that organ, attended with most distressing vomiting, with complete success. The relief was as rapid and complete as that produced by the nitric acid. The patient's life was evidently saved by this treatment. The preparation Dr. James employs, is much stronger than the strong liquor of ammonia of the London Pharmacopoeia. It is kept by a few chemists only, under the name of "Aqua ammoniæ fortissima." Dr. James directs the hand to be applied over the skin immediately after it has been rubbed with it. If the inflammation or irritation should be exces sive, the part may be washed with a little vinegar." WEN-A paper from Dr. Coindet was lately read at a meeting of the Helvetian Physical Society, on the discutient properties of Iodine, on the enlargement of the thyroid gland, termed Wen. Of all the preparations the doctor employed, he found a tincture to answer best, an ounce of which contained forty-eight grains of iodine. Of this tincture he prescribed, for adults, ten drops in half a tumbler of water (with a little syrup), to be taken in the morning fasting, a second dose at ten o'clock, and again in the evening, or at Towards the end of the first, he prescribed fifteen drops three times a day: some days later, when the iodine had had a sen-· sible effect on the disease, he still increased the dose to twenty drops, three times a-day, to keep up its action. This dose he has rarely found it necessary to exceed, even when the tumour is enormously large, or of long standing. In most cases, he found it to remove every trace of the disease in six or eight weeks. He employed no topical remedy. Iodine gives tone to the stomach: it does not dis-> turb the intestines, nor increase the secretion of urine, or skin. He has also found this tincture very beneficial in cases of uterine obstruction and debility. He recommends the tincture not to be made in a large quantity, because, if it be kept long, chrystals of iodine will form, which will weaken the preparation. The doctor was induced to give this article a trial, in consequence of having discovered: it to exist in burnt sponge and Ethiop's vegetable (fucus vesiculo-¡ sus), both of which have been highly extolled by some writers as remedies for wen. From Dr. Coindet's account of the iodine in cases of green sickness and indolent obstructions, it merits a trial in scrofula, particularly in glandular enlargements. EDUCATION.-SIRS,-Rarely indeed do I presume to obtrude upon the notice of a discerning public (for reasons you, no doubt, will easily penetrate), nor should I have ventured in the present instance, had not your correspondent Quintus roused my cacoëthes scribendi (I hope the expression is correct, gentlemen), by opening with a tremendous battery on Dominus P-, as baffles all my fortitude and self-command to repress the impetuosity of my feelings. I could have borne, with lamb-like meekness, the almost irresist-ible charges of your correspondent, had they been levelled against my own caput-nay, I could have given him great credit for the talent he has shown; since it is universally acknowledged, that to write with tolerable propriety upon a subject we do not understand, requires no small degree of ingenuity and skill. Sed quid faciam ? (pardon me, gentlemen, if I wish to appear learned as well as others of your correspondents)-can I tacitly see a fellow creature, whom I had so trimmed and roasted in a former Gazette, assailed and mangled by another, while a drop of ink remained in my horn? ̧ No, gentlemen; and I should have whispered a few words to Ominous Q. had not this portentous signature thrown me in a fit of nervous debility, and paralysed my whole frame. But what, let me ask, is all this stir about? May not Jane W——, Eliza J——, Ominous Q-, and a host of others "bewildered in the maze of schools; "In search of wisdom lose their common sense, And then turn critics in their own defence," without embroiling such subjects as you and I, Messrs. Editors? Yea, verily it is no fault of ours, if Some have first for wits, then poels past, Turn'd critics next, and prov'd plain fools at last." But Quintus, to silence Dominus P――, as well as to exhibit his own learning, quotes Quintilian, whom he conceives to be more analogous to our own times. How wonderfully apposite! And, as a farther corroborative of the flagrant errors of Dominus P Lest we thy waves to flames consign." Now, gentlemen, for the mental health of countless generations yet unborn, let us examine the mighty labours of these newly discovered luminaries in the scholastic hemisphere; let us probe the wounds that "each on t'other hath inflicted," and let us apply some anodyne to soothe this kuonic disposition, lest the contagion spread abroad, and render your publication, not a Gazette of Health, but of pestilence. Quintus may, possibly, accuse me of affecting to be witty. He may load me with opprobrium, and challenge "the decency of my notions of education." He may heap assertion upon assertion, and rank me among the inferior class of teachers, but this will neither convince me of the wisdom of his head, nor the goodness of his heart. His fair colleagues, too, who, in the suavity of their nature, have raised the standard of rebellion against fool's-caps and the like, seemed to have overlooked the most probable mode of obtaining their wishes, and of annihilating these terrific instruments of "endurance vile," viz.-to inculcate the principles of docility into the hearts and minds of their young friends, with implicit confidence in the superior judgment of their teachers. This, and this only, can effect their purpose; this will obviate the necessity of all kinds of chastisement; this will cherish passive obedience and consequent affection; this will lay the basis of content and real worth; promote improvement, happiness, and health, in the rising generation, and confer a blessing on the latest posterity. In answer to these anti-foolscap Amazons, Dominus P., probably with more truth than politeness, flatly charges parents with "sowing the first seeds of evil in the breasts of their tender offspring; with teaching them to equivocate, tell falsities, pilfer and rob."-And your correspondents, instead of denying these facts, and proving the contrary, vent all their fury aud ammunition against the paper pileus, as Ominous Q. delicately calls it-and Quintus, with the condescension of ideal superiority, admits, indeed, that this said Dominus P. has not only experience, information, and zeal, but moreover a great fund of wit." I dare say, Dominus P. heartily wishes he could return the compliment. Then, in the next paragraph, he declares," it is quite preposterous that a person with such perverted notions of decency, and such erroneous ideas of education, should affect to be so severe or witty on others, who have come forward with the most praiseworthy feelings, to consider a subject of the first importance to the rising generation." I shall not comment upon this imposing rhapsody; I shall say nothing of the folly, madness, or inconsistency of persons, without experience or infor mation, coming forward upon a subject of the highest importance, however praiseworthy their intention might be. I shall pass sub silentio the lamentable consequences that must ensue, should such jejune notions obtain in the world; and, in the integrity of my heart," ask Quintus, "if the incidental abuses of any system be a fair argument against its general utility?"-Yet, such, and such only, are the objections adduced by his fair colleagues; such are the cogent reasons reiterated by these scholastic innovators; such is "the baseless fabric of a vision," which your correspondent brings forth Quintilian and Locke to support; and such are the plausible, but incalculably mischievous opinions, which, I conceive, Dominus P. wishes to overthrow. Dec. 4, 1820. GENIO. EMPIRICAL PAMPHLETS AND THEORIES.-Dr. James Johnson has attempted " to neutralize our analysis" of his book on Hepatic Derangement in the last number of his medico-chirurgical pamphlet, under the head of DOCTOR JOHNSON TO CERTAIN- liberal REVIEWERS!!! "When a man," observes the Doctor, "is violently assailed, and covered with all kinds of abuse and obloquy, it is a pretty significant symptom of his prosperity, and the flourishing state of his undertakings, whatever they may happen to be."!! We were cer-. tainly not before aware of the Doctor's speculations having proved successful. As a practitioner, the learned Doctor is certainly not known to the profession in London; and as to the flourishing state of his book, our readers are as capable of forming an opinion on it as ourselves. The learned Doctor's insinuation of our being actuated by a sinister motive, is similar to the assertion of the quacks, whose traffics we have exposed. Dr. Solomon stated, in a public advertisement, that, to a discerning public, the opposition his book and medicine had experienced from the medical profession, could not fail to prove a powerful recommendation; and the proprietors of Spilsbury's antiscorbutic drops have had the effrontery to assert, that, had not the wonderful cures the drops had effected in cutaneous affections and scrofula brought it into great public estimation, we should not have deemed it worthy our notice!!! The editors of another periodical work have also been guilty of the most audacious crime of speaking contemptuously of the Doctor's exertions to acquaint the public with his immense stock of medical knowledge. "I have been told," says he, "that the editors of that Journal have stated their determination to write me down, through the medium of their own work, and the Gazette of Health." Some quacks have made similar declarations, viz. that they were told that we were "handsomely paid to run down advertised medicines." Now, as no editor of any Journal writes for this work, we cannot but doubt the truth of this gentleman's declaration, of his having had such information communicated to him-the base insinuation is pitifully: mean. If it were our wish to see him lower than he is in the literary or medical world, we should advise him to continue scribbling; for: no one is more likely to do it than himself. We beg to ask this. great man, Who wrote down the New Physical and Medical Journal ? When he joined those great medical luminaries, Drs. Shearman and Palmer, in the Editorship of that work, the circulation was nearly three hundred; but after his scientific analyses of works, and his fulsome panegyrics on his own books, the sale of the work decreased. rapidly every month, till it fell to the mortifying number of fifty!!! Did Dr. Johnson write down' that work, or did his coadjutors, or some interested opponent do it? The doctor and, according to his statement, others, have discovered the identity of his reviewer in the Physical Journal, and the Gazette of Health. We do not pretend to have devoted so much time to the study of language as the learned doctor; for, regarding language as a vehicle for ideas, we attend only to the information it conveys; and the value of the matter is not raised or diminished in our estimation by fine-sounding words, either of a dead or living language; but so far as we are capable of judging of style, there is as much difference between that of the editors of the Physical Journal and our own, as exists between the language of Dr. Johnson and that of the said editors. Not only does our style of writing' differ, but also our medical ideas. Lest the doctor should complain of us, as he has done of others, of having made "garbled misrepresentations," we give the whole of the sentence in his own words:"The Medical and Physical Reviewer has, I am told, stated his' determination to write me down, through the medium of the two vehicles above mentioned; FOR, no one fails to perceive the identity of the writer in both." This short extract is certainly a very pretty specimen of the Erglish language, or the style of a man of science!! In pointing out the striking absurdities in Dr. Johnson's Book, we conceived that we were discharging a duty to the public; and, as we have given our reasons, when we presumed to oppose his theories, for so doing, he should have attempted, at least, to refute those' reasons, like a man of seience, and not have descended to compliment himself, by attributing our remarks to interested motives. Towards him we can have no hostile feelings; and, from his relinquishing his system of writing and puffing, we can derive no advantage. By pointing out his errors, our object, with respect to himself, was more to assist him in writing him up, than in writing him down. If he were a man of discrimination, he would be aware that those reviewers are not his real friends, who have been induced to flatter his vanity. But, says the learned gentleman, in the list of subscribers to my work, the names of men of science appear. By dint of importunity, the names of men of science may be procured as subscribers to the most contemptible works, by those authors who can descend to such meanness. Of that list, can be. point out one man of science who is also a reader? If he can, we' defy that man to refer us to one idea or observation in all the Doctor's writings, of any practical utility, that originated with himself, or to |