man was much favoured by Charles I., who gave him the liberty of using all the deer in the royal forests for perfecting his discoveries on the generation of animals. It was remarked, that no physician in Europe, who had reached forty years of age, ever, to the end of his life, adopted Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood, and that his practice in London diminished extremely, from the reproach drawn upon him by that great and signal discovery. So slow is the progress of truth in every science, even when not opposed by factious or superstitious prejudices." He died in 1657, aged 79. As to the velocity of the circulating blood, and the time wherein the circulation is completed, several computations have been made. By Dr. Keil's account, the blood is driven out of the heart into the aorta with a velocity which would carry it twenty-five feet in a minute; but this velocity is continually abated in the progress of the blood, in the numerous sections or branches of the arteries, so that before it arrive at the extremities of the body, its motion is infinitely diminished. The space of time wherein the whole mass of blood ordinarily circulates, is variously determined; some state it thus, supposing the heart to make two thousand pulses in an hour, and that at every pulse there is expelled an ounce of blood, as the whole mass of blood is not ordinarily computed to exceed 24 pounds, it must be circulated seven or eight times over in the space of an hour. The quantity of blood taken in the heart, and expelled therefrom into arteries, by successive pulsations, in the course of 24 hours, has been lately estimated by Dr. Kidd at 24 hogsheads in an ordinary man, and 8000 hogsheads in a large whale. So that the whole mass of blood, in such a man, reckoning at 55 pints, passes 288 times through his heart daily, or once in five minutes, by 375 pulsations, each expelling about 14 oz. of blood, or about three table spoonsful in a minute. CRANIOLOGY, &c. The origin of this art is attributed by an author, who has lately published a dissertation upon the subject, to one John Rohan de Retham, who published a tract thereon, in the year 1500. That the modern discovery is about 300 years too late, is, he tells us, evident from this tract. The terms in both are the same, generally ending in iva. The local seats of the mind are as determinately indicated in each. The ancient German speaks of the cellula imaginativa, cellula communis sensus, cellula estimativa, seu cogitativa, et rationalis, cellula memorativa, &c. The fable is, therefore, as obsolete as it is absurd; and presents but the "organic remains" of a craniology exploded more than 300 years ago. Donna Olivia Sabuco de Nantes, a native of Alcarez, possessed an enlightened mind. She had a knowledge of physical science, medicine, morals, and politics, as her writings abundantly testify. But what contributed the most to render her illustrious, was her new physiological system, which was contrary to the notions of the ancients. She established the opinion, that it is not the blood which nourishes the human body. This system which Spain did not at first appreciate, was warmly embraced in England, and we now receive, says the Spanish writer, from the hands of strangers as their invention, what was, strictly speaking, our own. Fatal genius of Spain! before any thing to which thou givest birth can be deemed valuable, it must be transferred to strangers. It appears that this great woman assigned the brain as the only dwelling for a human soul; in this opinion Descartes afterwards coincided, with this difference only, that she conceived the whole substance of the brain to be the abode of the soul, and he confined it to the pineal gland. The confidence of Donna Olivia in her own opinions was so great, and her determination in vindicating them so powerful, that, in her dedicatory letter to the Count de Barajas, President of Castile, she entreated him to exercise all his authority among the learned naturalists and medical men in Spain, to convince them that their heresies were inaccurate, and she could prove it. She flourished in the reign of Philip 2d. VENEREAL DISEASE. This calamitous disease was brought into Europe in the first voyage of Columbus,* and broke out in the French army in Naples, 1494; whence the French term mal de Naples: in the Netherlands and England, it obtained the appellation of mal de France; in the latter country, it is said to have been known so early as the 12th century; about the same period too, at Florence, one of the Medici family died of it. ST. VITUS'S DANCE. It is related, that after St. Vitus and his companions were martyred, their heads were enclosed in a church wall, and forgotten; so that no one knew where they were, until the church was repaired, when the heads were found, and the church bells began to sound of themselves, and those who were there to dance, and their bodies to undergo strange contortions, and which circumstance has since supplied a name to a disorder peculiar to the human frame, known by "St. Vitus's Dance." SMALL POX. The first who introduced innoculation into Europe was Immanuel Timonis, a Greek physician at Constantinople, who voluntarily com municated the art to the universities of Oxford and Padua, of which he was a member. VACCINATION. To the discovery of this great blessing we are indebted to the late Dr. Francis Jenner, of the city of Gloucester, to whom a monument is erected in St. Paul's Cathedral. GREY HAIR. The Medical Adviser states—“ Some hypotheticals, among whom is a modern periodical, confidently assert, that the cause of Grey Hair is a contraction of the skin about the roots of it, and from this cause suppose that polar animals become white; the cold operating as a contracting power. If this argument were true, we should be all grey if we happened to be exposed to a hard frost! There are fewer grey people in Russia than in Italy or Arabia; for the Russians having more generally light-coloured hair, do not so often or so soon feel the effects of the grizzly fiend as those whose hair is black or dark. Cold, therefore, is nonsense; it assuredly cannot be contraction at the roots of the hairs. Has not the hair of individuals labouring under certain passions become grey in one night? Were *See Colombia. these suffering from cold? rather, were they not burning with internal feeling? Sudden fright has caused the hair to turn grey; but this, as well as any other remote cause, can be freed from the idea of operating by cold or contraction. Our opinion is, that the vis vitae is lessened in the extreme ramifications of those almost imperceptible vessels destined to supply the hair with colouring fluid. The vessels which secrete this fluid ceases to act, or else the absorbent vessels take it away faster than it is furnished. This reason will bear argument; for grief, debility, fright, fever, and age, all have the effect of lessening the power of the extreme vessels. It may be said in argument against this opinion, that if the body be again invigorated, the vessels ought, according to our reasoning, to secrete again the colouring fluid; but to this we say, that the vessels which secrete this fluid are so very minute, that upon their ceasing their functions they become obliterated, and nothing can ever restore them." LIVER COMPLAINTS IN INDIA. Most people, says the Medical Adviser, suppose that it is the heat of the climate in the East Indies that produces so many liver complaints this is not alone the cause; the Brazils are much hotter, yet these diseases are not by any means so frequent. It is also supposed that free-living is the cause, but is refuted by the fact, that mere water-drinkers will be affected in common with wine-bibbers, and dogs that go from Europe to India will, in the same profusion of numbers, as men, contract a disease of the liver. The opinion of the natives is, that this formidable complaint is occasioned by the quality of the water, and with this opinion we agree. People going to India should look to this point; they should boil the water which is for drink, and then filter it. ANATOMICAL WAX FIGURES. Madamoiselle de Beheron, the daughter of a Parisian surgeon, was the first who invented Anatomical Figures of Wax and Rags. She modelled her imitations upon corpses, and they were executed with such perfection, that Sis William Pringle, on seeing them, said, 66 they wanted nothing but the smell." WARTS, AND A RECIPE FOR THEIR CURE. Warts are sometimes the effect of a particular fault in the blood, which feeds and extrudes a surprising quantity of them. This happens to some children, from four to ten years old, and especially to those who feed most plentifully on milk, or milk meats. They may be removed by a moderate change in their diet, and pills made of equal parts of rhubarb and compound extract of colocynth. But they are more frequently an accidentally disorder of the skin, arising from some external cause. In this last case, if they are very troublesome in consequence of their great size, their situation, or their long standing, they may be destroyed. 1. By tying them closely with a silk thread, or with a strong flaxen one waxed. 2. By cutting them off with a sharp scissors, and applying a plaister of a diachylon with the gum over the cut wart, which brings on a small suppuration, that may dissolve or destroy the root of the wart. 3. By drying, or, as it were, withering them up by some moderately corroding applica 337 tion, such as that as the milky pieces of purslain, of fig leaves, of swallow wort, or of spurge. But, besides, them corroding vegetable milks being procurable only in summer, people who have very delicate thin skins, should not make use of them, as they may occasion a considerable and painful swelling. Strong vinegar, charged with as much common salt as it will dissolve, is a very proper application to them. A galbanum and sal ammoniac, which being kneaded up well together and applied, seldom fails of destroying them. The most powerful corrosives should never be used without the direction of a surgeon, and even then it is full as prudent not to meddle with them, any more than with actual cauteries. We have lately seen some very tedious and troublesome disorders and ulcerations of the kidneys ensue the application of a corrosive water, by the advice of a quack. Cutting them away is a more certain, a less painful, and a less dangerous way of removing them. CESARIAN OPERATION. Macbeth. Thou losest labour; As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed; Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield To one of woman born. Macduff. Despair thy charm; And let the angel, whom thou still hast serv'd, The Cæsarian operation is of ancient date, but received its present appellation from having been performed on the mother of Julius Cæsar. From its vast importance as regards the life of both mother and child, but more particularly the former, as the latter cannot be but of secondary consideration, both as regards its real value to society, and the doubtfulness of its positive vitality, so as to secure its permanency, it is generally superceded by one of another kind, which has for its object the positive salvation of the mother, at the expense of the child's life, called Embriotomy. The Cæsarian operation, however, is sometimes without scruple, or hesitation, had recourse to, for instance, when the mother, whose gestation is so far advanced, as to calculate upon the child being capable of permanent animation, and whose death has been suddenly occasioned without previous disease, and where surgical attendance is immediately at hand. LAW ON ANATOMY. It is said, that the earliest law enacted in any country, for the promotion of anatomical knowledge, was passed in 1540. It allowed the United Company of " Barber-Surgeons" to have yearly the bodies of four criminals to dissect. GOLDEN AGE. The Golden Age, which we often have heard of, is an allusion to the æra when the then known world was under the dominion of a single master; and this state of felicity continued during the reign of five successive princes, viz. Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonini. Mankind was never so happy, and it was the only Golden Age which ever had an existence (unless in the warm ima-` gination of the poets), from the expulsion from Eden down to this day. EPOCHS AND ERAS, Terms which constantly recur in history, and the elucidation of which belongs to the province of chronology. An epoch is a certain point, generally determined by some remarkable event, from which time is reckoned; and the years computed from that period are denominated an Era. The birth of Christ is considered an Epoch— the years reckoned from that event are called the Christian Era. PROMETHEAN FIRE. Prometheus was the son of Japetas, and brother of Atlas, concerning whom, the poets have feigned, that having first formed men of earth and water, he stole fire from Heaven, to put life into them; and that having thereby displeased Jupiter, he commanded Vulcan to tie him to Mount Caucasus with iron chains, and that a vulture should prey upon his liver continually; but the truth of the story is, that Prometheus was an astrologer, and constant in observing the stars upon that mountain, and that, among other things, he discovered the art of making fire, either by the means of a flint, or by contracting the sun-beams in a glass. Bochart will have Magog in the Scripture, to be the Prometheus of the Pagans. From the above came the term "Promethean Fire." He was the author of all the arts among the Greeks. He lived 1715 B. C. STENTORIAN LUNGS. When any one declaims with a stronger voice than usual we are apt to say, he possesses "Stentorian Lungs," or, he has a "Stentorian Voice." The term is derived from Stentor, an extraordinary Grecian, who had as loud a voice (according to Heathen Mythology) as fifty men. AUGEAN STABLE. Augeas, a King of Elis, had a stable, which would hold three thousand oxen, and had not been cleansed for thirty years. He hired Hercules to clean it, which he did by turning the river Alpheus through it. Hence is derived the classical quotation of " the Augean Stable." GORDIAN KNOT. 66 This term, also used by classical speakers, is derived from Gordius, the son of a husbandman, and afterwards King of Phrygia, remarkable for tying a Knot of Cords, on which the empire of Asia depended, in so intricate a manner, that Alexander, unable to unravel, cut it with a sword. THE PALLADIUM. This term so often used in oratory; for instance, "The Palladium of our Liberties," is derived from a wooden image of Pallas, called Palladium, whose eyes seemed to move. The Trojans affirmed, that it fell from Heaven, into an uncovered temple; they were told by the oracle, that Troy could not be taken while that image remained there, which being understood by Dyomedes and Ulysses, they stole into the Temple, surprised and slew the keepers, and carried away the image; the destruction of the city soon followed. |