130

There is a third and newly-establishedschool in Portland-street, and the fees areexactly the same with those of the Ander-sonian. I am informed by intelligent stu-dents, that its teachers are conspicuous fortalent and attention.

I must now apologise for the unavoidablelength of this letter, but trust that the im-portance of its contents will be deemed a

sufficient excuse. Should it prove themeans of smoothing the difficulties of evena single student, it would prove a rich re-ward for the trouble of, Sir,

Your obliged servant,AN ENGLISH STUDENT.

PHYSIOLOGY.

To the Editor of TnL LANCET.Sm,-In selecting- asphyxia as a subject

for his Essay, your correspondent, Mr.Thomas, does not appear to be aware of thedifficulties with which it is surrounded, andof the probability of its bringing’ him intothe field of controversy, for which at pre-sent he does not seem fully equipped, al-though quite as much so, perhaps, as manywho may enrol their names on the list ofcombatants. The subject is a difficult one,because it involves all that is known on themost important and interesting poiuts ofphysiological science, the main spring ofwhich is said to be defective, in conse-

quence of our ignorance of the nature oressence of life. This may be the case, butit is very questionable whether the searchafter it, like that for a hidden treasure, hasnot, in exploring’ every habitation in whichthere is the least manifestation of its pre-sence, been more profitable than if we hadearly been in actual possession of the secret.Thus the physiologist, who attentivelystudies the sins by which life manifestsitself, and examines minutely every struc-ture in which its works are displayed, ac-quires more real and useful information thanhe who vainly endeavours, in his closet, toform correct notions of that essence whichis far bevond the reach of our limited facul-ties. Physiology being one of those un-certain sciences in which it is often difficultto refer effects to their true causes, and totrace causes to their true effects, that manhas much the advantage of his brother la-bourers in the field of inquiry, who, with azeal to study physiology for its own sake,and who, being previously prepared by edu-cation and habits of application, has timeand opportunities afforded him of taking acomprehensive and comparative view of thestructure, relative situation, and connexionof the different parts constituting organised

; beings, from the lowest order of plantsthrough every link of the chain, to the com-plicated structure of man,-who also ex-amines closely the phenomena which all

living beings present, and the order in whichthose phenomena are developed, and whois bold enough to interrogate nature himself,and faithfully record her responses. Addedto these qualifications, his knowledge of themore certain laws which regulate inanimatematter, and his application of them to ex-plain many parts of the animal and vegeta.ble economy, enable him to carry his re-searches to the very threshold of that portalwhereon is written, in legible characters," Thus far and no farther," and there ’° tobend in submissive adoration, acknowledg-ing a wisdom he cannot fathom and a powerwhich he cannot comprehend." Such a man is the first to acknowledge the narrow limitsof his own faculties ; and from his habitsof close observation and reasoning we caneasily discover that he has- acquired thescientific tact of separating the pure metal ’

of well-grounded theory from the dross of ’

hypothesis. There have been and still are

existing many such men as I have attempt-ed to pourtray, and to whose opinions weought always to give our tacit assent

until we have, by pursuing the same pathof inquiry ourselves, either come to thesame or to different conclusions. The roadto truth is now laid open to us all; the

hedge-rows of superstition, slavery, and

ignorance, which compelled men to pursueone narrow, dark, and much-trodden track,have long since yielded to the bill-hook ofthe great pioneer in science, our illustriouscountryman Francis Bacon, who, not con-tent only with liberating men’s minds fromthe state of bondage in which they hadlong been held, supplied them with a

sure guide to direct their future investi-gations of rature and their inquiry aftertruth.* ** *t

I had a few remarks to make to another of

your correspondents, but having alreadyoccupied too much space in your valuablecolumns I shall endeavour to curtail them

by only saying, that the gentleman towhom I allude is one who has deserved wellof the scientific world for his deep re-

searches in a most interesting branch ofnatural history; that he is a man of no

ordinarary stamp, and therefore not to bedealt with without some degree of caution,for if you attack him in his secondary andmost accessible haunts, where he is seen

+ We take the hberty of omitting fiom the arti-cle of our Correspondent a passage at this part,because its insertion is not material to the goodsense of his letter, and would entail upon iis a cor-respondence for which we should not, we are cer-tain, be able to find room. To the playful appealwhich follows we have not the same objection.-ED. L.

131

mounted on his favourite charger, the gigan-tic Iquinadon, I say, Sir, if we attack himhere, he will soar on eagle’s wings to amore lofty station, where he wilt sit, like

Jupiter on Olympus," Montis in excetso consistit vertice Gideon,"

whence my feeble artillery of argumentaiid persuasionem will, I fear, not inducehim to descend, but will have as mucheffect on him, as the throwing of squibs Iand crackers would have on the baseof the mountain on which he rests. Ifhe will not come down himself, let him atleast send his messenger Mercurius, to sayin full detail, how he succeeds in quench-ing the fire of St. Antonius; or perhapswe may invoke Jupiter to hurl him fromhis lofty tenement.

I need not say, that it is to Mr. MantellI allude, who will, I trust, excuse the fa-miliarity with which I have introduced hisname, and will kindly take the gentle hint,and favour us with his notes in furtherillustration of the mercurial treatment of

erysipelas.I am, Sir, your very obedient servant,

J. W. K. PARKINSON.Hoxton Square, Oct. 10, 183 1.

J. W. K. PARKINSON.

ST. THOMAS’S HOSPITAL.

CLINICAL LECTURE

DEILIVERED BY

PROFESSOR ELLIOTSON, M.D.,October 10th, 1831.

FIRST CI,INICAL LECTURE FOR THE

SEASON 1831-32.

GENTLEMEN,—It has been my custom,merely to enumerate those cases only whichhave been admitted in the previous week,and to dwell particularly upon those whichhave been presented during the same pe-rioa ; but as this is the beginning of theSfason, and as no cases have been presentedbut such as were admitted previous to thecommencement of the session, I must con-fine myself solelv to the cases which youhave seen admitted. The cases were tenin number, six female and four male.

INFLAMMATION OF THE SPINAL LIGA-

MENTS (?) FROM A IIALL.The first is a girl aged 18, who nine weeks

previously had fallen down stairs. In thatmonth menstruation had ceased, and shehad expexienced such violent pain in the

back as to be unable to walk. I found thewhole spine, but especially the dorsal andlumbar portion, exceedingly tender. Thefall had evidently produced an inflammatorystate of the ligaments of the spine. Whe-ther the amenorrhoea was the immediateeffect of the fall, or the result of her fright,it is impossible to say. She was also verycostive. The treatment indicated was sim-ple enough ;-that of free depletion fromthe neighbourhood of the spine, and activepurging’, together with spare diet. I or-dered her to be cupped upon the back andloins to a pint, and prescribed half a dropof croton oil every day ; she was put uponmilk diet. The relief was immediate, andyou will see that she will presently be quitewell.*

CHRONIC GASTRITIS.

Three cases were, all alike, instances ofa very common affection among females-chronic gastritis. The one occurred in afemale aged eighteen. She had been illfifteen months, and was a short stout dam-sel. Her symptoms were pain and tender-ness of the epigastrium and left hypochon-drium, with a sensation of heat there, ex-tending up the throat. The pain was al-ways increased by taking food. These arethe common symptoms of gastritic affection.The function of the stomach was also verymuch disturbed, for she complained verymuch of acidity. The heart frequentlysympathises with these affections, and ac-cordingly this woman had palpitation, butthere was no preternatural sound of theheart, no inordinate impulse of any one por-tion of this organ, but one uniformly-in-creased action,-no sign of organic disease.The appearance of the tongue was perfectlynatural, and to this I beg leave particularlyto direct your attention, because the ten-derness of the epigastrium, and that por-tion of the left hypochondrium in which the

large end of the stomach lies, were exceed-ingly well marked, and a sensation of heat

1 was felt there, ascending up the throat, sothat the inflammatory state of the stomach

e could not be doubted, and yet the tonguewas clean. The truth is, I believe, that in

inflammatory conditions of the stomach andintestines, the tongue is generally red onthe dorsum, or the tip, or at the edges, butnot invariably so, so that if you depend onthe state of the tongue, you may conceivethere is no inflammatory state of the sto-mach when there really is, and when theother symptoms show it, and the success ofantiphlogistic treatment proves it. Her

* This patient was ahle to stand and walk per-fectly well in two or three days. Vlenstruation be-t;an upon the second day atter her admission, andshe was discharged free from her complaint withoutany additional treatment.—Rep.