advocates for calf's head broth, contend that the loss of two or three ounces of blood from this part, affords more relief than five times the quantity from a vein in the arm. The relief which generally follows the occurrence of the piles, in cases of giddiness or head ache, from plethora and inflammatory affection of the lungs, gave rise to this practice. Dr. Thomas contends, that by applying leeches to the anus, "artificial piles are created; it is disgorging," says he "those congregated conduits; it is really making medicine the handmaid of nature!!" The Doctor must have a very curious idea of the nature of piles. If the " congregated conduits" are not over-distended, they are rather in an opposite state, in consequence of a preternatural determination of blood to the head, how then can the leeches "disgorge" them?

In affections of the head, the irritation attendant on piles proves more beneficial than the loss of blood; indeed, to it alone, unless some hæmorrhage ensues, the benefit is solely attributable. The loss of blood from the vessels of the anus cannot unload the sanguiferous system, or the vessels of the head or chest, more than from the arm. During a short stay at Paris, we saw the bodies of three young men who died of inflammation of the lungs, for the recovery of whom, we were told every thing had been done that the art of medicine could accomplish. On inquiry what that " every thing" was, we were told that ten leeches had been applied to the anus, and the most purifying tisans had been freely administered!!

From Doctor Thomas's plan of "combining the English with the French practice," we suspect no benefit will arise to his patients. The plan, however, affords what advertisers term "a taking advertisement," and as such may answer his purpose for a season or two, at this "celebrated asylum for invalids," which he represents Cheltenham to be.

REPORT OF DISEASES.-In consequence of the sudden great variations in the temperature, &c. of the atmosphere within the last six weeks, acute rheumatism, inflammatory affections of the head, chest, and abdomen, gout, apoplexy, and asthma, have been very prevalent in the metropolis and throughout the country. In cases of acute rheumatism and gout, the simple and the alcalescent wine of the colchicum seeds have been administered with uncommon success, in some instances of both, restoring the patients to perfect health in the course of a few days, who from the severity of the attacks expected to be confined to their beds as many weeks. In cases of asthma and chronic gout and rheumatism, the ammoniated tincture of the seeds, in the dose of a spoonful in a glass of water twice a day, has afforded immediate relief, and in a few days removed almost every symptom. In inflammation of the lungs, pleurisy, and incipient consumption, the oxymel of the colchicum seeds has proved a very powerful auxiliary to bleeding and blistering. Laudanum, or an aperient medicine, is not necessary during the use of this remedy. It powerfully allays cough, checks the velocity of the circulation, and quiets the nervous system. It also operates gently and pleasantly on the bowels.

It is in the early stage of pulmonary consumption, that this oxymel proves beneficial. When ulceration has taken place in the substance of the lungs to much extent, evinced by great emaciation, copious expectoration, considerable prostration of strength, colliquative diarrhoea,

&c. this oxymel, by reducing the powers of the system, hastens its fatal termination. In inflammation of the intestines, calomel and opium, as recommended by Dr. Peart, with copious bleeding, have been generally successful. For hooping cough, which has also been very prevalent and violent, the oxymel of colchicum seeds, and also the alcalescent wine, have produced the happiest effects. In a few cases of croup, abstraction of blood from a vein in the arm or temporal artery, till the patient fainted, with the use of a solution of tartarized antimony, calomel, and blisters to the extremities, have speedily effected a cure. The tincture of Iodine is likely to have a fair trial in scrofula. In dropsical affections, particularly of the chest, the daily inhalation of oxygen, with the muriated tincture of iron, foxglove, squill, and calomel, has proved very beneficial. In cases of partial palsy and debility of the nerves within the abdomen, galvanism and electricity have been employed with the most decided advantage. Of the effects of the liquid resin of spruce, termed balsam of spruce, in cases of gleet and fluor albus, we have received several very favorable reports.

JARVIS v. SLOPER (continued from p. 776 of our last Number). When an attorney proceeds against a client for the recovery of his demand for attendance, &c. he is not required by law to produce evidence of his having had the conferences with his client for which he has made a charge; it is necessary only for him to prove that he was employed by the defendant. This privilege was granted to attorneys, in consequence of the conferences between them and their clients being generally on private business, and of course rarely in the presence of a third person, or a competent witness. Now if attorneys enjoy this privilege on account of the business of their clients being frequently of a private nature, how much more are surgeons entitled to it, who are so often consulted in cases of diseases, the nature of which they are bound by honour to keep secret? It is the common practice of surgeons, to supply their patients with lotions, pills, caustic, &c. in a private surgery, that their pupils or assistants should not know the nature of their complaints. Even when medicines are sent by a servant to the house of a patient, it is often impossible to prove the delivery of every article, after the expiration of twelve or eighteen months. Did the wary lawyer Sloper suppose that Mr. Jarvis could not prove the delivery of all the medicines he had taken, or that he would not in his case dare to put his daughters in the box to prove his having taken the necessary medicines?

The delay and enormous expence of legal proceedings to recover a debt, are very serious evils. To uphold the dignity of the profession, it was the duty of Mr. Jarvis to refer his charges to an impartial jury, and this he did at the risk of an expence of upwards of one hundred pounds; for if he had failed to make out his case satisfactorily, or had been nonsuited through an error in the proceedings, the costs on both sides, which he must have paid, would have amounted, on a moderate calculation, to that sum; and notwithstanding he succeeded in obtaining a verdict for the full amount of his demand, his extra costs will amount to fifteen or twenty pounds, so that with all his success, he will be from seven to twelve pounds out of pocket!!! The expence of the law has induced many a man to give up a just debt, or pay an unjust one, rather

than run so great a risk. Hence, the heavy charges operate in favour of villany. One would suppose that in this country the life of a man is of much less importance to the legislature than two pounds; for a man may be tried for a criminal act, and hung for a few shillings, and that too in a summary way; but to recover a debt of two pounds the plaintiff may be put off by sham pleadings for eighteen months, and after all has only to prove the hand-writing of the defendant, and that at an expence of fifty or one hundred pounds!!

BATEMAN'S PECTORAL DROPS.-These drops are "accurately prepared from the patent by Messrs. Butlers, and sold at their original Medicine Warehouse." The Proprietors state, "The King (his most gracious Majesty George the Second), upon a representation to him of the rare cures performed by Doctor Bateman's pectoral drops, on many thousands of his Majesty's loving subjects in several parts of Great Britain, to prevent counterfeits, and to secure the property to the sole inventor (the learned Doctor Bateman), was graciously pleased to grant his letters patent under the great seal of Great Britain." They add, by way of a N. B. "There have been many more uncommon and surprising cures performed by these drops, than by any one medicine since the discovery of the art of physic." To prevent imposition, they particularly request purchasers to observe that the bottle is "sealed with a boar's head and star, and the following words round the seal, The King's Patent expired."

This incomparable remedy is recommended as an infallible specific for "epidemical disorders of sudden colds, attended frequently with violent shiverings, faintings, head-achs, pains and swellings in the limbs or joints. Innumerable instances might be given of their happy effects and power, of which not one in a hundred can miss of an immediate cure in the cases above, as well as in all agues, fevers, fluxes, asthmas, coughs, colds, rheumatism, gout, stone, colic, gravel, &c.!!!" The compass of the wrapper of the bottle "not admitting of the testimonies and certificates of all the cures performed by these wonderful healing drops," the proprietors only insert a few. In 1742 they cured Mrs. Elizabeth James, of Wapping, of rheumatism; in 1744, Edward Parker, of Southwark, of " a violent cold, which turned to the rheumatism;" in 1740, John Williams, of Guildford, "who was afflicted with gout and rheumatism to that degree that he could not move hand or foot. He had been in three hospitals. The drops, by the blessing of God, cured him, and at this time he remains free from pain!!!" They also cured William Mallett, of the same place, and John Thomas, of York, who also remain at this time free from pain. Their mortal remains having long ago mingled with their mother earth, they are indeed free from pain. This "invaluable specific is made in the following manner. Take of fresh liquorice-root sliced, of aniseeds bruised, of each two ounces, of water five pints; to be boiled till the liquor is reduced to four pints, then strain it off, and dissolve one drachm of opium in a quart of the liquor whilst warm; then add one ounce of camphor previously dissolved in a quart of rectified spirit of wine, and then mix the whole together, and add of New England castor, of wild valerian root in fine powder, of each one drachm, of cochineal in powder half a drachm; shake the whole well together, and keep it in a bottle closely stopped." The directions are not strictly chemical, for no chemist would boil

aniseeds, the essential oil, on which their medicinal virtues depend, being thereby dissipated. The active ingredient of this composition is opium, which in chronic rheumatism and chronic cough may, in one case out of a hundred, afford temporary relief. In acute cases, as "fever, colds, and cough," it is capable of doing irreparable mischief, by disordering the head, constipating the bowels, and accelerating the circulation. In the humid asthma and constitutional cough this remedy, by checking expectoration, would prove very injurious. It is in fact a disguised solution of opium, which in the hands of ignorance is a very dangerous remedy.

HICKMAN'S DIURETIC PILLS." A celebrated remedy for the gravel and stone, all affections of the urinary organs, pains in the back and loins, lumbago, &c." The proprietors, in their dissertation on the properties of these pills, state, "That gravel and stone arise from no fault of the unhappy sufferer; for they are the consequences of a vitiated action of the organs, which form improper combinations from whatever he eats or drinks, and thus equally affect the most temperate, as well as those given to the greatest excess." The proprietors have therefore studied animal chemistry. The diuretic pills, they say, strengthen the relaxed state of the secreting vessels, and combine chemically with the secreted fluid; thus both dissolving the gritty matter already formed, and preventing its future generation."-This theory of the modus operandi of the diuretic pills, does not accord with that of the causes of gravel; for if one article taken into the stomach is capable of correcting morbid action in the kidneys, surely another may be capable of producing it. Many practitioners, as eminent as the proprietors of the pills, have attributed gravel and stone in the bladder to a disordered state of the digestive organs, and the use of water containing calcareous matter. The diuretic pills of Dr. or Mr. Hickman, are composed of 'carbonate of soda, soap, rhubarb, and oil of juniper, which in most cases of simple gravel, may afford relief. For "all diseases of the kidneys, and pains in the loins," they cannot be proper; for instance, in an inflammatory affection of the kidneys, and in diabetes, they would prove very injurious, and in pains in the loins, as acute lumbago, or inflammation in the cellular substance, about the psoas muscles, they would also aggravate the sufferings of the patient; and if in the lattercase the patient were to persist in their use till matter had formed, he would probably lose his life. We advise the proprietors therefore to recommend their pills only in those cases of gravel, which are clearly pointed out by a deposit from the urine.

VELNO'S VEGETABLE SYRUP.-Soon after this nostrum was puffed off as a specitic for the syphilitic disease, Mr. Blair, a scientific surgeon of London, gave it a fair trial in a great variety of cases, at the Lock Hospital, but in no single instance did it ever succeed in checking the progress of the disease. It is really a most melancholy fact, that all the patients who have been admitted into the Lock Hospital of late years, in consequence of the advanced progress of the disease, particularly caries of bones, loss of palate, &c. attribute their wretched state to trusting to advertised remedies, and the false promises of quacks. That the College of Surgeons have allowed such impostors to carry on their traffic openly with impunity, is to us a matter of astonishment.With this disease the College of Physicians say they have nothing to do, and with the practice of quacks they are evidently afraid to interfere.

No. 63.

To MARCH 1, 1821.

VOL. VI.

SUPPRESSION OF URINE.-Mr. Wilkinson, a Member of the London College of Surgeons, has communicated to Dr. Uwins, a case of periodical Suppression of Urine, which was at one time apparently produced by an infusion of foreign tea, and at another by gin and smoking. The patient (a male, fifty years of age) had been subject to an attack of the disease about midnight for four years. The paroxysm came on with the common symptoms of indigestion. Under the direction of some of his medical friends, a bougie had been employed. Mr. Wilkinson was, however, of opinion, that the stricture of the urethra was spasinodic. He did not object to the employment of the mechanical remedy, agreeing with the other medical attendants, that it was as likely as any other topical means to alleviate the morbid excitement, and thereby remove the cause of the spasms. After the disease had existed two years, the paroxysms became very painful. The bougie uniformly afforded considerable relief. The topical remedy, with constitutional treatment, by antispasmodics, stomachics, diuretics, &c. failing to afford permanent advantage, Mr. W. was led to suspect that the tea the patient was in the habit of taking every evening was the cause of the malady. Mr. W. accordingly persuaded him to abandon this practice, and the following night he escaped an attack. The result not having satisfied the patient's mind that the tea was the cause of his sufferings, he took it again as usual, late in the evening, and the following night he experienced a recurrence of the complaint. This second experiment subdued his scepti cism; he gave up tea, and remained free from the distressing malady for six months. Such however was his attachment to his old habit, that he then took to it again. About five hours after the first indulgence a suppression of urine ensued, for the removal of which Mr. W. was under the necessity of introducing a bougie. From this time, in consequence of leaving off tea, he remained free from an attack for about five months, when the disease returned; and for three months he was under the necessity of making use of the instrument every night. Internal remedies afforded no benefit, although he was much afflicted with indigestion, except the colchicum, which produced a powerful cathartic effect. After the use of this medicine the patientwas often able to empty his bladder without the aid of the bougie for three nights, during which time he took cocoa for his evening repast. He then took to gin and water, and smoked tobacco. The disease recurring, Mr. W. prevailed on him to omit this practice for one night, the consequence of which was a nonrecurrence of an attack. Having the idea that gin and smoking could have no effect on the disease, the patient had recourse again to gin and smoking, the following evening, and about midnight the suppression came on. The third night he took neither gin nor tobacco until after the usual period of attack, and in about three hours afterwards an attack occurred, which rendered the use of a bougie necessary.

This circumstance produced a thorough conviction upon the mind of the patient, that the disease was first brought on by the use of tea, and