THE

MONTHLY

GAZETTE OF HEALTH;

OR

MEDICAL, DIETETIC, ANTIEMPIRICAL,

AND

General Philosophical Journal.

BY

RICHARD REECE, M. D.

MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF
THE SOCIETY OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE OF PARIS, AUTHOR OF THE MEDICAL
GUIDE AND DICTIONARY, &c. &c. &c.

SOLD BY SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONES, PATERNOSTER ROW,
SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL, BALDWIN AND CO. AND HIGHLEY

AND SON, LONDON; AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS

IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

1822.

[Price 12s. 6d. in boards.]

LONDON

Printed by R. CLAY, Devonshire-street, Bishopsgate,

PREFACE

ΤΟ

THE SIXTH
SIXTH VOLUME.

FOR the highly respectable and increasing patronage with which this Work is honoured, the Editor begs to return his most grateful thanks. Notwithstanding the violent opposition his labours have experienced from the mercenary Members of the Medical Profession, whose artifices and incompetency to exercise the healing art he has exposed, he has the very gratifying satisfaction to find not only the names of Monarchs and Noblemen, but-what is far more gratifying to his feelingsof the most scientific Members of his own Profession, among his regular Subscribers.

To conduct a Work, the professed object of which is to acquaint the Public at large, and the Members of the Profession in particular, with the discoveries that are made in every branch of medicine; and to enable the Readers, by practical remarks, to distinguish sound doctrines from fanciful theories, is an arduous task; and to expose the unworthy practices of those Members of the Profession, whose only study is to enrich themselves, and the impositions of regular and irregular Quacks, is a very bold one. The Editor of such a Work, if he conscientiously discharges his duty to the Public, must, in return, expect to be assailed with the most rancorous abuse, inasmuch as those whom he makes his enemies, are a set capable even of tampering with the lives of their fellow-creatures for the sake of lucre-wretches whose chief study is to form connexions, for the sake of making merchandize of them when afflicted with disease. From this quarter,and from the advertisers of nostrums, the Editor has great pleasure to find, that he continues to be honoured with the most unqualified abuse, and the most scurrilous misrepresentations. His assailants have, in return, the great mortification of knowing, that their mean insinuations and base calumny, have a very contrary effect on the minds of their Readers, than that they were desirous to produce; viz. of inducing

their Readers to read the Gazette of Health, in order to judge for themselves; the consequence of which has been, they have continued regular Subscribers to the Work, and discontinued the contemptible Journal of a scribbling Charlatan, or wholesale dealer in technicalities. The perusal of our labours has enabled his readers to discover that silly Journal to be a tissue of nonsense, fit only to please those who suppose that a knowledge of medicine consists only in technicalities. If the Editor of the Gazette of Health has been severe in his comments on the traffic of a certain set of fee-hunters, who have had the impudence to style themselves regular Physicians, for the purpose of imposing on the weak and credulous, he flatters himself he has been just, and that no person can accuse him of misrepresentation or falsehood, or of having been actuated by any unworthy feeling or interested motive.

If the Editor has met with much unmerited abuse from one set of Practitioners, he has certainly met with much unmerited praise from another; so that he has no reason to regret having undertaken the superintendance of the publication. A perusal of the present Volume, he flatters himself, will afford satisfactory evidence of his sole object being public good, and also of his gratitude for the patronage the Work has experienced from every class of Readers. Among the discoveries made in the course of the present year, may be noticed the efficacy of the Colchicum Seeds in Gout, Rheumatism, Asthma, incipient Consumption, and inflammatory affections of secreting membranes, particularly of the Wind-pipe of the Iodine in Wen and Scrofula-of the Buchu Leaves in morbid irritability of the Bladder, Kidneys, and Urethra, Gravel, and paucity of Urine-of the Carbonate of Iron in Tic Doloureux-of Galvinism in debility of the Digestive Organs of Lupulin in Indigestion of gouty and nervous subjects. The original communications, and the practical observations on them, as well as on the new publications, he also flatters himself, will be found instructive.

The Editor begs to inform his new Subscribers, that he has re-printed all the back Numbers, for the purpose of supplying them with complete sets, which may be obtained only at the Medical Hall, 170, Piccadilly, at 9d. each Number. On this price he cannot afford to make any allowance to Booksellers.