come muddy when cold, before coction begins; after the first rigour is over, the eyes fparkle, the face is flushed, and moft commonly the fkin alfo; but when an atra bilious diathéfis is fuperadded, the tongue is yellowish and loaded; the water is muddy and jumentofa in the very beginning; the countenance is embarraffed the fpirits dejected; and for most part, there is a cough and wheezing.

;

When the inflammation is fingle, the relief from bleeding is fudden and permanent: vomits are not required, and indeed ought not to be administered; nor any other purges than fuch as are foft, and do not irritate to a confiderable degree; but when the inflammation is complicated with the humor atrabilarius, the bleeding gives prefent relief, but the fymptoms of repletion in the head, or turgid matter in the bowels, foon appear, and require purges, or perhaps vomits, before they can be removed. The great repletion and pain of the head, and fome degree of cough, or difficulty of breathing, indicate fomething more than inflammation, if they are not greatly relieved by bleeding only.

An atra bilious inflammatory fever of the flight kind, after proper bleeding, purging, and vomiting, will frequently give way in a few days, if thefe evacuations have been inftituted early; but, generally fpeaking, it lafts twenty-one days, if the degree of pulfe and heat have been continued long enough to breed a confiderable quantity of phlogistic lentor; fo that very fizy blood, of the colour of foul tallow, portends a tedious fever. However, if the fymptoms are not violent, it is better to wait patiently, than endeavour fuddenly to stop its natural progrefs by any drug. I have frequently feen the attempt made, and the fever has always become ill-conditioned, without being fhortened; whereas, when the preffing symptoms were well attended to, and nothing violent has been attempted, the fever indeed has frequently been tedious, but the patient's recovery has at last been perfect; for, on or be fore the twenty-firft day, the fever fubfided, and nothing remained but a cough, and critical falutary expectoration of thick digested matter. This fever alfo remits foon after the first evacuations, and fometimes terminates in an ague, which rarely happens in genuine inflammations: thefe always proceed to perfect coction, and come to fome crifis in a fhort time, without any confiderable, regular, lafting remiffion, except what may have arifen from evacuations during the crude state; but the mixed fevers remit sensibly and early.'

The fevers which Dr. Grant has treated of, are, the ague, inflammatory conftitution, catarrhous conftitution, fynochus non putris, putrid conftitution, fynochus putris, bilious consti tution, atrabilious conftitution, and peripneumonia notha.

Upon the whole, the obfervations in this volume appear to be faithful and judicious, and we would therefore recommend it to the faculty as a work which deferves their perufal.

VII. Poems,

tious in commercial intercourfe, when that fecurity for payment was weakened, which had formerly been the bafis of their confidence. How many mechanics, how many honeft traders, who, by the benefit of a small degree of credit, might have been put in a way of earning a decent livelihood, and fupporting their families, would then be reduced to the laft neceffity, for want of a little fum of money, which their induftry might foon have repaid, and in default of the payment of which they were willing even to forfeit their liberty? Would people in diftreffed circumftances have then a ftronger title to the humanity of those who could affift them, than, in the prefent ftate of things infolvent debtors have to that of their creditors?

Befide the arguments drawn from humanity against the imprisonment of infolvent debtors, our author makes fome remarks, in regard to its pernicious influence on their morals. Speaking of those who are liberated by acts of indemnity, he fays,

• Inftead of useful members, that were snatched away and fequestered from society, a gang of wretches is thrown upon it, and become as great a nufance in the ftate, as they might have been beneficial to it, before their imprisonment. Have they not been stript by oppreffion, extortion, or want, of the little property they were mafters of before their arreft? Have they not been forgotten and forfaken, by thofe few friends, whofe protection, help, and recommendation, would have rendered their striving effectual? Have not their places in fociety been filled by others, and their employers been provided with other hands? Have they not loft both the habit and the ability, of labour? Are they not contaminated in their health by the unwholesomeness of confinement and inactivity, and by the filthiness of mifery, and of a close stagnated air? Have not their virtue and spirit funk under the overbearing load of their diftreffes? Are they not corrupted in their morals by the example of wickedness, and the temptations of idleness? Such they are, doubtless; and fuch are they turned loose upon the world, where many of them foon perish through want, as they would have perished in jail, whilft others defile fociety by their infamy, and difturb the common peace by their wickednefs: and many, after being thus releafed naked and helplefs, from confinement, are brought at laft to a violent, and fhameful death, by crimes, neceffity perhaps, drove them to."

The following extract contains the plan propofed by our author for regulating the profecution of debtors.

My Lords,

To point out a remedy for thofe evils, will perhaps be looked on as too great a prefumption in a private man, addreffing the wife and learned heads and difpenfators of the laws. But, as useful hints may be taken from the meaneft advices, I hope I may be permitted to submit my ideas to your lordships' wifer judgment.

Although it might be very dangerous, that any man fhould have it in his power to give up his all whenever he chufes, and thereby compel his creditors to give him a full difcharge: it would, I think, be highly proper and expedient, that whenever a man is fued by a creditor for the recovery of a debt, it should be allowable for him to produce in court, a lift of all his debts, and an inventory of all his effects, eftimated at their intrinfic valuè, and duly certified upon oath, under fevere penalties in cafe of perjury. That upon the producing this in court, the creditors fhould be obliged, if the lift of creditors amount to more, and even to the fame fum as the inventory of the effects, to take his share of the effects in the fame proportion to his debt, duly proved, as there is between the amount of the inventory of the effects, and that of the lift of creditors. For inftance, fuppofing a man owed to fundry creditors one hundred pounds, and the whole of his effects should amount to no more than fifty; in that cafe, the creditor who fues this debtor, fhould take effects to the amount of ten fhillings in the pound of his demand. Befides, he should pay all costs, both his and the debtor's, when it appears that this laft has not enough to pay every body twenty fhillings in the pound; for if in fuch cafe the debtor should be adjudged to pay cofts of fuit, he could never do it but at the expences of his other creditor, making thereby their condition worse than that of the creditor, who, by fuing him, has thus recovered his just share of what he poffeffes.

Arreft previous to the hearing of caufes, fhould also be prohibited, being a proceeding unconftitutional in itself, howfoever agreeable it may be to practice. Befides, arreft is often eluded by the crafty and the fraudulent, whilft the harmless, deftitute debtor is brought by it to that horrid distress I have fhewn imprisonments to be productive of, even before a judgment has fubmitted him to that fate. Therefore this practice, bad enough of itself, but much worfe by the abuses, oppreffions, and extortions, it gives birth to, fhould be abfolutely abolished; and instead of it, it might be enacted, That fummons left at the dwelling of debtors, should be fufficient to compel their appearance under pain of outlawry. And this would bring the debtor more effectually before the courts than a per

a perfonal arrest, which, if aware of, he will contrive to avoid perhaps for a long time.

A debtor found to be dilatory out of bad principles, should be feverely punished. Those that are able to pay, if they de lay payment till they are fued for it, fhould not only be obliged to pay all cofts, but also a proportionable fine, and imprisonment till the whole is discharged. And as there are many mean fpirited wretches, who would prefer fquandering their property in jail, rather than fatisfy the juft demands of their creditors, fuch fhould, after judgment, be clofely confined, and not permitted to fee any body, to step out of their cell, or to live otherwise than very low.

• Severe punishments should be inflicted on the fraudulent debtor, on him who conceals his effects, and for the infamous practice of vesting the property of them in other people, in order to evade a delivery to their creditors.

I would have alfo proportionate punishments inflicted on the indiscreet debtor, who involves himself in debt, without certainty, or at least, good probability, of his being able fully to fatisfy his creditors, And here, I think it may be obferved, that there is certainly different degrees of guilt in borrowing indifcreetly the fame fum of money from a poor or from a rich man: nay, he who has enfnared a poor man, and made him his creditor for a small fum, the lofs of which will distress him, is more criminal, and deferves a much greater punishment, than he who has taken in, in the fame manner, a rich man for a very large fum, if the lofs of that fum does not really hurt him. The fame obfervation is also applicable to fraudulent debtors.

By fuch regulations, all the evils complained of, would be effectually removed and remedied.

• Creditors would be more careful how they give credit, and more difficult in granting of it. This difficulty in obtaining credit, would reftrain people in their expences; they would buy with more referve, knowing they must pay moftly ready money and unable to procure it by loans, or goods by credit, they would be more fedentary, and lefs given to pleasure; more ·laborious, and lefs lavifh; more industrious, and less corrupt; and confequently, they would be in their respective employments and undertakings, more fuccefsful and lefs expofed to

ruin.

Thofe regulations, though they would reftrain credit, and keep it within due bounds, would not hurt it; at leaft, fuch credit as is neceffary to the profperity of commerce. On the contrary, they would ftrengrhen it, by rendering unneceffary, and confequently unusual, many fcandalous tranfactions which

P 4

Cawthorn wrote this poem, the awful idea of Pope's excellence probably checked the native vigour of his mind, and depreffed his genius while it excited his emulation. Thus Hector loft his intrepidity when he was met in the field by Achilles.

VIII. Elements of Therapeutics. By Andrew Duncan, M. D. of the Royal College of Phyficians at Edinburgh. 800. 45. Boards. Robinfon and Roberts.

WE

E are informed in the Preface, that this work is intended as a text-book for a future courfe of lectures on the fubject. The elements are here divided into two parts, the first of which treats of Therapeutics in general; and the second, of particular claffes of medicines. The author discovers a very large and accurate acquaintance with his fubje&t, and establishes, by many forcible confiderations, the propriety of the method he has adopted in the investigation, which is fuch as must render the performance highly fuitable to the purpofe for which it is intended.

We fhall present our readers with the chapter on the Nature of Emetics, as a proof of the author's claim to our approbation.

I. By emetic medicines are meant thofe fubftances, which, when taken internally, excite vomiting, provided they are capable of producing this effect in a found ftate of the ftomach, and independent of any action arifing from their bulk, whilst, at the fame time, they can be fo managed as to operate without endangering the life of the patient.

• Il. The direct effects to be ascribed to emetics, are, that they excite fickness, naufea, and their common attendants. They produce the action of vomiting itfelf. They occafion fudden and oppofite changes in the circulation. And they increase the secretion, or discharge of secreted matter, from the various glands evacuating their contents into the first paffages.

III. The changes arifing in the fyftem from the effects abovementioned, are: evacuation of the contents of the ftomach: free circulation through those glands whofe fecreted matters are acted upon agitation of the body in general: commotion of the nervous system and a particular affection of the furface of the body.

IV. The individuals belonging to this clafs are numerous, and admit of confiderable variety: there feems to be a foundation among other orders for eitablishing the following :

1. Eme