NEW NAMES.-GENTLEMEN,-The names of chemical articles have been so frequently altered by the chemists of France, Germany, and England, in consequence of discoveries, real and pretended, and new theories, that it is now much to be lamented, that the nomenclature was ever introduced into the practice of medicine. Chemistry has advanced with such rapid strides, that, in order to keep up with the nomenclature, the new discoveries, in some degree, render necessary, in chemical science, your College of Physicians should publish a pharmacopoeia every six months. Having been advised by a Parisian physician to give my daughter a few grains of "chloride of mercury," I sent to Messrs. Godfrey and Cook, of Southampton-street, for a drachm of it. The article my servant obtained there, I found, on examination, to be the oxymuriate of mercury, vulgarly termed corrosive sublimate. Now, sirs, had I not have been acquainted with the article, I should, no doubt, have given my daughter two or three grains of it, the effects of which would have destroyed her life in a few hours! I afterwards sent to Mr. Accum for the "chloride of Mercury," who sent me a solution of corrosive mercury. I then sent to Apothecaries' Hall, where my servant was told that they did not keep it. I sent also to Paytherus and Co. in Bond-street, where my servant received the same answer. From the Medical Hall, in Piccadilly, I received, under the same name, viz. "chloride of mercury," the submuriale of mercury, (calomel,) which, I now find, is the article my friend wished me to give to my daughter. On referring to Dr. Paris's Pharmacologia, and Mr. Jennings's Family Cyclopædia, I find that chloride of mercury is the last new name for calomel.

The College of Physicians, I find, are engaged in correcting their Pharmacopoeia. This I certainly consider necessary for the chemical character of that body; but I hope that they will not think of altering the names of the chemical articles according to the last French nomenclature on chemical theories. With the practice of medicine they have, in my humble opinion, nothing to do; indeed I cannot help thinking that the name of a drug, by which it is the best known, is the most proper one to adopt. For the "prepared burnt hartshorn," my servant received at the shops of Messrs. Godfrey and Co., and of Messrs. Paytherus and Co., the carbonate of lime. The practice of selling prepared chalk for all the testaceous powders, is, I find, very common in this country. I was told by one man, who styles himself a chemist, that chalk and prepared burnt hartshorn do not chemically differ. Now they so far differ, that in some affections of the stomach and bowels, in which the prepared calcined hartshorn uniformly proves very beneficial, the prepared chalk proves as highly injurious. From the carbonate of lime, or prepared chalk, on meeting with an acid in the stomach, a considerable disengagement of the carbonic acid gas takes place, which, in cases of organic disease of the pylorus and intestines, attended with diarrhoea, I have found to produce the most distressing spasms and acute pain, whilst, in the same case, the prepared burnt hartshorn always checked the diarrhoea, and quieted the stomach. From the latter, the very small quantity of carbonic acid gas which escapes, is, on meeting with an acid, more beneficial than otherwise. In the diarrhoea, or the acid purging

of children, it is also of very great consequence to employ the true burnt hartshorn. I therefore, through the medium of your very useful publication, beg leave to recommend Messrs. Godfrey and Co. and Messrs. Paytherus and Co. to employ in their shops young men who are well acquainted with chemistry, and not allow them to exercise their opinions as to the chemical qualities of articles of which they are ignorant. From Apothecaries' Hall I obtained some extract of rhatany root, at a most exorbitantly high price, which possessed very little more virtue than rotten wood powder, formed into a paste with mucilage of gum arabic!! I advise that Company to keep the foreign extract of the root; for from the dried root neither they nor any chemist can make an extract that contains its medicinal virtues. At Messrs. Godfrey and Co.'s my servant, on complaining of the high price at which they charged the extract of rhatany, was told that he could not get it at any other shop, and of course must pay the price demanded!! The extract was too soft, and had a foetid flavour. Since you noticed the extract in your Gazette of Health, I have procured it at the Medical Hall, in Piccadilly, not only at a much cheaper rate, but of better quality. For your next number purpose sending you some further information as to the Southampton Street Druggists, who so pompously style themselves Chemists. I send you this communication, because I am told, by my friend Ure, that of all the journals published in this country, you are the only editors, who dare to insert it. I am, Gentlemen, your obedient Servant,

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Jan. 22, 1821.

J. JANNIER. THE FAMILY CYCLOPEDIA.-We have received the first six numbers of a work now publishing monthly, at the price of 2s. 6d. each number, by Messrs. Sherwood and Co. under the title of "The Family Cyclopaedia." It is edited by Mr. J. Jennings, a very scientific chemist, and a gentleman of general philosophical information. We find it to be a valuable manual of useful and necessary knowledge. It is alphabetically arranged, comprising all the recent inventions, discoveries, and improvements in domestic economy, agriculture, aud chemistry; the usual methods of curing diseases; observations on diet and regimen; a comprehensive account of the most interesting objects of natural history, animate and inanimate; a clear explanation of the various arts and manufactures; and a view of the human mind and the passions, with their particular application to the modern improvement in education and morals. It is to be completed in ten numbers. We have perused most of the scientific articles with much pleasure; they are pithy and modern. It is very superior to the " Domestic Encyclopædia," edited by the late Dr. Willich.

DEAFNESS, &c.-The Narrateur de la Meuse contains the following article on the cure of two deaf and dumb persous, who recovered their hearing and speech. "This novel and successful operation was performed by M. Deleau, a young practitioner, a doctor of medicine, of the faculty of Paris, ex-surgeon to the 4th regiment of cuirassiers, and now established at Meuse. The two deaf and dumb who underwent the operations (whereby he perforated with dexterity and success the membrane of the tympany), are Mademoiselle Bivier de St. Mibiel, aged sixteen years, and the Sieur Toussaint, son of the assistant magistrate of Hans-sur-Meuse, aged twenty-eight years.

"The young girl is doing extremely well. It is more than a month since she underwent the operation. Her left ear is perfectly healed, and the opening made to the tympanum always continues, which is absolutely necessary. She takes notice of the least sounds, and begins to articulate words in a very satisfactory manner. Her vivacity has increased, and her figure changes for the better. She is incessantly humming various airs which her sisters teach her.

"The young man of Hans-sur-Meuse, who was operated upon a short time since, hears as well as his comrades, and even more lively. His right ear is finer than his left; he makes constant efforts to pronounce all sorts of words. The surgeon, from whom we have the particulars, hopes that in three or four months the two subjects will speak perfectly. It is evident that they must be instructed like children, who begin to make the first efforts to articulate.

"M. Deleau informs us, that he is constructing an instrument, which will afford the happy facility of finishing the operation in three minutes, by which its success will be rendered more certain. By means of this instrument he will raise on the tympanic membrane enough of substance to prevent the necessity of introducing probes into the perforation during from thirty to forty days. He is of opinion, that he can restore the hearing of all those who have been deprived of it by an obstruction of the Eustachian tube, and by the obesity of the membrane of the tympany." The operation of puncturing the membrana tympani in case of obstruction of the eustachian tube, is very old. It was revived about twenty years ago by Mr. A. Cooper, who performed it several times with success; but in consequence of the puncture closing in a short time, the operation has very undeservedly fallen into disrepute. If M. Deleau's mode of operating will prevent the aperture from closing, he will have some claim to a novel as well as very important discovery.

INTOXICATION.-Dr. Petier, a German physician, informs us, that he has found the spirit of hartshorn (in the dose of a small teaspoonful in a glass of water) to counteract the inebriating effects of strong fermented liquors and spirits, and to recover a person from an apparently lifeless state from an excess of wine, in an hour or two. A French physician recommends twenty-five grains of the carbonate of potass to be added to the above draught, which he says renders it more efficacious by neutralizing acidity in the stomach. This gentleman condemns the practice of administering a tonic medicine the day after a fit of intoxication, with the view of invigorating the stomach. This organ being in a state of increased excitement, an opposite treatment should be adopted. The remedy he has found most beneficial is the saline draught in a state of effervescence, which he recommends to be taken every three hours for about two days.

BILIOUS AND NERVOUS DISORDERS.-A formidable opponent to Dr. Faithorne and Dr. James Johnson has started in Cheltenham. This gentleman, a Doctor John Thomas, in consequence of having been "many years resident_physician at Thoulouse in France, has been enabled to improve the English practice by combining with it some useful methods of cure employed on the Continent." learned Doctor is of opinion that "no man should, in the present en

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lightened state of medicine (as produced by the combination of French and English practice, we suppose), publish any observations that are not his own, particularly in the history and treatment of chronic diseases (to which he has paid particular attention); no compilations, still less collections of observations written by different authors, and united together by one man who has not seen the patients, should ever be permitted." This is certainly a very severe indirect attack on the luminous works of Dr. Faithorne, Dr. James Johnson, and Dr. Solomon. On the part of these successful writers, we beg to ask Dr. Thomas if their quotations (not plagiarisms) are not proofs of their having been great readers, and of being " groundedly learned?"

Dr. Thomas is a great admirer of the Hamiltonian system, which he thinks does not differ from that of Mr. Abernethy. Dr. Hamilton and Mr. Abernethy have, in his opinion, treated on bilious complaints, &c. in a very superior manner; "indeed," says he, "in such a manner, that nothing but the hope of being able to glean a few scattered ideas, not taken up, overlooked, or perhaps not thought of by those two able physiologists, could have tempted him to explore a ground already so well known!!!" The Dr. proceeds, "I have also had many years extensive practice, a great part of which in a southern climate, and having mostly taken notes of such cases as came under my care, I have selected a few of them with an intention to publish." Like the learned Dr. James Johnson, the Doctor talks much of “functional disorders of the digestive or chylopoietic organs," but has neglected to notice the "lesion of functions."

Dr. Thomas has however been able to add to the blue pill system, clysters and warm bath. Now if the Doctor were to combine with his improved Hamiltonian and Abernethian systems, the spinal marrow system of Dr. Solomon, what an irresistibly attractive system he would make! We have not been able to discover any similarity between the practice of Dr. Hamilton and that of Mr. Abernethy. The indiscriminate use of purgatives, which Dr. Hamilton in some degree sanctions, has been productive of very serious mischief. Many a patient with diseased intestines, and others of leucophlegmatic habits, have been certainly by it hastened to their graves. The employment of such a system, under all circumstances, is dangerous empiricism. Now, as to Mr. Abernethy's system, it is capable of doing a great deal of good; nay, of curing very formidable organic diseases, and at the same time is incapable of doing harm. The founder of it recommends an aperient medicine only to obviate costiveness, and not to purge. The Abernethian system is in fact a beautiful one for inexperienced practitioners, whilst that of Dr. Hamilton is a dangerous one.

Doctor Thomas being a convert to the opinions of Dr. Hamilton, very politicly settled in a place, whose purgative springs enable him to carry it into effect. The mineral waters of Cheltenham he declares to be inexhaustible. He condemus a prevalent practice of adding a strong solution of Glauber's, or any other neutral salt, to render them more active. The Cheltenham waters, says the Doctor, "want no addition of salts, nor of concentrated waters to render them more active; they are naturally more impregnated than most of the celebrated saline waters in Europe. Besides, it is the unanimous opinion of the most

learned physicians, and the most celebrated chemists of the present day, that natural mineral waters owe much of their efficacy to the extreme diluted state in which they hold their component parts in solution." The Doctor adds, "" even sea water is rendered more aperient by an addition of common water!!” During a short stay at Cheltenham, we found it necessary to make an addition of the concentrated water to the natural water, to render it aperient, and we found half a pint of the water with it to produce an effect which three pints of the natural water failed to do; and we know that many professional men have found it necessary to do the same, in order to avoid the most unpleasant sense of oppression of the stomach and head-ache, which uniformly followed copious libations of the natural water. When calomel has been taken the preceding night, a common practice at Cheltenham, the natural water may be sufficient; and also when the bowels are tender or irritable.

"The Peruvian bark, opium, and many others of the most powerful remedies," the Doctor states, "may be neutral, even more simple than mineral waters. The better," says he, "a remedy is, when judiciously PRESCRIBED, the more dangerous it becomes when injudiciously ADMINISTERED." Therefore a patient, on arriving at this "asylum for Invalids," should place himself under the guidance of a "judicious prescriber!" One improvement in English formulæ by French medicine is the addition of lean veal. On the commencement of his practice in Toulouse among the natives, "the French apothecary," he says," Frenchified the remedy by adding to the decoction of dandelion and hedge hyssop, which he had prescribed, two ounces of veal, deprived of fat. As there is a predilection in France for medicated broths, I did not object to this addition. The patient also liked the idea of taking broth rather than medicine. When I can do so I always yield to the wish of the sick in the form of the medicine." This is indeed being very considerate; but, good Dr. Thomas, would not the decoction of calf's head, so much extolled by some French physicians, prove more beneficial than the broth of lean veal, which yields little or no gluten?

The Doctor, during his residence in France, attended a case of palsy of the right side of the body. He "saw him the day of the attack. His tongue was so much paralyzed that it was with great difficulty he could articulate so as to be understood, and his mouth was DRAWN aside!!"

It is the relaxation of the muscles of the paralyzed side of the face, that gives the mouth on the opposite side the appearance of being "drawn aside." The idea of paralyzed muscles drawing a part aside betrays an ignorance of the nature of palsy. In this patient, the observant Doctor" recognised considerable functional disturbance." He ordered, à la mode Français, a clyster of warm water and salt, to be repeated every half hour till a dejection was produced. "His feet and legs, as high as his knees, to be put into a warm bath with mustard in it," and "while this was doing," says he, "I sent a person to town to fetch a dozen leeches, ten of which were to be applied to the anus as soon as the clyster had produced the desired effect," He also "ordered a dose of gentle opening medicine of senna and Glauber salts to be taken the next morning!!" The practice of applying leeches to the anus in affections in the head and chest is very common in France. Many of the physicians,