LECTURE INTRODUCTORY TO A COURSE ON HYGEINE, OR THE PRESERVATION OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH,

240 moment. Reflect, then, on the oneI, hand, how often it happens that the mind is disturbed without organic disease of the brain, and how often it happens that organic

last

LECTURE INTRODUCTORY TO

A COURSE ON

disease goes on without what you would take HY GEINE, to be corresponding derangement of the functions of the mind. OR THE PRESERVATION OF With regard to the treatment in these THE PUBLIC HEALTH, cases, that must vary very much. As to the treatment of the patients who are BY it has been very similar now up-stairs, WILLIAM FARR, ESQ., in all of them. There are various remedies for palsy, after the cause of the SURGEON, LONDON. disease is at an end. In the first train Delivered October 28th, 1835. of cases in which there have been fits, and the patient remains paralytic, local stimuli, and setons on the neck, a succession of GENTLEMAN,—The subject of Hygeine, so blisters, and stimulating the parts with elec- far as I know, has not yet been treated in a tricity and strychnia, are recommended. course of lectures by any one in the metroSuch cases I find to he best treated by blis- polis ; consequently the attempt which I am tering the spine, and dressing the blistered this evening about to make, presents more surface with mercurial ointment. By that than the ordinary difficulties of a first lectreatment I have seen a great many obsti- ture, and must plead for the exercise of more nate ’cases really recover; but it is one that than an ordinary degree of indulgence. Init is difficult to pursue in private practice; stead of entering directly on the matter of because it is so very painful. I think alsc the course, as should be done, were the that cantharides is useful, and it strikes me general nature of the subject to be disthat electricity might have often a good cussed thoroughly comprehended, I shall, effect. With strychnia I can do no good.1 after examining the history of Hygeine, enhave tried it in fifteen or sixteen cases, but deavour to lay before you an outline of the I do not think I have ever derived the least whole course, and direct your attention to advantage from its use. The most effectua’ some illustrations which may enable you to remedy is the blistering, and the next is appreciate, at their just value, a few of the electricity. Another plan, particularly witl points of view from which we are about to Human Life. aged persons, is that of taking away a smal examine " quantity of blood by cupping, six or eighl Hygeine is a naturalized French word, taken from theGreek V-y LE Lor i;-yEia, health. ounces every fortnight or month, and keep In its present form it is not, as Dr. FoRBEs ing the bowels open. Now, gentlemen, this brings me for the lhas judiciously remarked in his Biblio3 very agreeable to the English ear ; present to the conclusion of what I have tography," say to 3-oa of paraplegic cases, and the treat-and I should have adopted the term Hygioment of disease of the brain. There is really logy, bnt from the dread of attempting two little to be done in them. However, I shall innovations. It is considered equivalent to be able hereafter to illustrate my views far- the art of j}rese1’ving health; and while the ther, by a reference to other cases in the exercise of Therapeutics restores the sick to hospital as they occur. Our old gentlemanI health, Aiygeine is said to teach how life is I do not expect will get much better; but i preserved. Life is valuable,-" All that a man Noland, I think, will, as well as the man hath will he give for his life,"-and health from whose head I have endeavoured to is a blessing which sweetens every other or bears men up even against misery; produce a discharge. He is now when private individuals only are conbetter, and that discharge is in effect the same as if a seton had been applied. You sidered, health and the extension of existence are thus keeping up a constant discharge by should be the primary objects of Hygeine; the use of mercury, effecting a considerable be attained at the expense of almost any I sacrifice. Every drain from the vessels that supply the member of the body may and, probably, coming nearer to the seat of be lost, all its form and loveliness may have injury than you could approach with a seton. perished around it, the intellect itself may There is one thing to be observed with regone, and man may remain, spect to the use of setons in hospital pracSans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, saus everything," and that to be atthat are "

lv I

gettingIjoy, II so

I

head,to

I

I be

tice,

is,

they

apt

I"iand

tended with erysipelas, and therefore I never yet may it be our duty to protract animaorder them. I am sorry to have brought tion to its utmost span. Even with the most individual, in the most forlorn you out such a night as this; but next time we may have a finer evening, and then wecondition, nothing could justify the negshall have lights, and perhaps more curious’lect of every necessary sanatory precaution, the inevitable moral wreck of the cases to bring under your notice.

I I!e

destitute ’l 1heart, except

to

survive which-to sacrifice

our

241 sölen1n duties,

life, and

so,

friends, country, or truth, for against some false doctrines, which float like vitam pe2-de2,e causes warning wrecks on the surface of its past

propter

vivendi,-hygeine itself offers

incentive.

history. Egypt was considered by the ancients to the of health and Although preservation the prolongation of life are the great ob- be the seat and source of medicine. The of great bodily cleanliness, strict jects constantly to be kept in view in pri- observance use of vate hygeine, they are subordinate in public regimen, mild diet, from which the several animals was proscribed; vomiting, where nations are considered to hygeine, the higher end of developing the human purging, and fasting, for three days succesa simple, invigorfaculties, and raising them to their greatest sively every month; andthe education, youth to hardinuring ating of possible degree organic perfection. Regardships,—these were some of the doctrines of ing mankind with a general eye, would an the formed part of their intelligent being desire to see a feeble, inibe- laws.Egyptians, andwere included in tho Physicians cile, effete population, vegetating through anilearned class, constituting one all-powerful antediluvian age of some eight hundred winno

-

i

I

would he attempt to call forth all the priesthood, to whom a third of the land was ters; allotted. practised their art for the energies of humanity, to flourish for a few advantage They of and rich indiscriminately, years or generations, and then to ebb with their endowedpoor riches raising them above the terrible revulsion? Would he not rather of requiring fees. In the time of seek to temper the intensity of life, so that, necessity or

when

ble

Herodotus, it is said, the plague was entirely multiplied by time, the greatest possi- unknown among the Egyptians, many of of vitality might be produced ? whom attained a great age.

sum

-

the Saxon root of " Health," implies strength-bence we have "a hale man : "-and " Healer was a bestower of Health. " physician" and " Saviour " were translated by the Saons "Healer:’ In speaking of the preservation of health, I wish health to be understood as implying not only that smooth course and equilibrium of the .functions which is now commonly indicated by the word, or the state to which patients are restored after sickness,-but the strength and continued energy of the mental as well " as the muscular system. Cultivation" would be a more appropriate term than " preservation ;" as the latter implies only

"Hael,"

The four last books of the Pentateuch unfold a great system of hygeine, not constituting a mere philosophic unapplied theory, but enforced by legal sanctions, and carried out in practice to the very letter of its enactments. MosES was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and adopted several of their practices ; but together with the great idea of emancipating his countrymen, and carrying them from a land of bondage to a land overflowing with natural riches, came many profound principles of truth, resulting from the study of the moral and physiological condition of mankind, and a thorough knowledge of the continuance, while" hygeille" employs all external circumstances-of the country--. external influences, and all our knowledge the wilderness, through which people of the organs, the functions, and the habi- were to be led. On account of the relation .tudes of the human economy, not merely for of miracles mingled with the narrative of its prese1’vation, but for its improvement. MOSES, some persons object to references The ttue object of hygeine, then, is to in- being made to the Pentateuch; or to concrease the sum of vitality by extending indi- sidering it as historical authority for scividual life to its full term (averting death) ; entific truths ; but internal and circumby obviating sickness ; and by increasing stantial evidence proclaims its authenticity the energy of all the vital forces, whether too strongly to justify the rejection of the nutritive, formative, locomotive, or sensi- facts which it contains, whatever differences of opinion may attend their interpretive and intellectual. A history of life, of the natural and super- tation. VOLTAIRE says that every thing natural means which nations and legislators about MosEs is supernatural :-. " Chaque haveemployed for its preservation, the peuple a ses prodiges, mais tout est prodige plans proposed by enthusiasts, and the chez le peuple juif." After examining the valuable precepts which medical men and records collected in the Pentateuch, the philosophers have successively deduced from manners and the style of the Arabs, and all the observation and experience of man- the other attendant circumstances, I think kind, would afford us abundant instruc- you will come, if not with WARBURTON, at tion ; as it would show the human mind least with MULLER and ROETTECK, to a at issue with a problem of the greatest different conclusion. I shall here assume practical importance, and the highest spe- that the facts are historical, and proceed to culative interest. My first step, however, develop a faint outline of the Mosaic syson this occasion, shall be directed to signal- tem of Hygeine ; important, because it is the izing some of the chief cultivators of hygeine; first recorded with detail, and because of to direct you where to refer for more the mighty principles it involves. The great ample information on the subject than can1 theological system revealed by MOSES, I am be furnished in these lectures,-and to guardi qualified nor called upon to discuss ; -

I

-

neither

242 in

hygeine

physical

we

facts.

have

only

to do with the ter

flying creeping things

were,

probably,

not unacceptable in the wilderness. The the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, and the

MOSES, after carefully distinguishing contagious diseases of the Israelites, com- chamois,

were orthodox food; in fact, the manded that the infected should beisolated-7 classification excluded few animals which we In Leprosy-a cutaneous affection allied in now eat, except swine, hares, and rabbits. character to Tubercular Elephantiasis-the Everything that ‘° dieth of itself" was prosuspected man was brought to the priest, nounced inedible; and the blood of all animals who pronounced him " unclean ;" or, if there was to be poured out .-°‘ Ye shall eat the were any doubts, shut him up for seven days, blood of no manner of flesh ; for the life of until the symptoms of the case became well all flesh is the blood thereof." Lev. xvii, 14. marked. The "uncleanwere put without Blood is rarely taken by Europeans, although the camp, and only visited by the priest: it is drunk by some carnivorous animals and their clothing was burnt. When the people savages. It is not very palatable, but 1 am possessed settled habitations in Canaan, not aware that blood is indigestible. Some unhealthy houses were directed to be ex- think that this enactment was intended to amined, and " scraped within and round prevent cruelty; in support of which, about," the dirt thus "taken off being carried BRUCE relates, that somewhere in Abyssinia, out of the city to an uncleanplace. The the fierce nomads drive their cattle and cut worst buildings were to be entirely broken steaks from them as they are needed ; but this very much resembles MIZELD’S story of down and removed. In the disease of Gonorrhœa, the identity the goose.* and antiquity of which, will, I think, apThe enactments relating to marriage,which pear indisputable to those who read the are now adopted in Europe, were founded on 15th chapter of Leviticus, every thing and the physiological law, that a degenerate offevery person touched by the patients, was spring results from the intercourse of anideclared " unclean "-to be set apart and mals which are nearly related ; and that a purified by washing. Seven days of purifi- proper mixture of alien blood, can alone cation were prescribed for the cleansing of give birth to an untainted and vigorous race. the impure person; who afterwards offered Cousins and near relations, by being brought before the congregation " two turtle-doves into contact when young, and when the affecor two young pigeons." The minute regula- tions are opening, too often lay the foundations on this head deserve your attention; tion of matrimonial alliances which infringe so do those relative to the menstruation of upon the general laws of Hygeine. What females, to their purification, and to co- would have been the result of allowing the habitation, particularly in the East, and connubial union of nearer relatives ? The among the Arabs. Circumcision, still prac- denouncements of adultery, which was puntised among the same races, and, in some ished by death, and the strict investigation tribes, upon females, was intended to pro- of virginity, discouraged promiscuous intermote cleanliness ; perhaps to prevent some course,-destructive of the bonds of families, diseases of the prepuce; or to obviate phy- calculated to yield a degenerate spurious ismosis and paraphymosis. It was sue, and likely to involve nations in exon the eighth day after birth; and often must hausting pernicious diseases. Such a rehave destroyed the most weakly children, straint was necessary, and justified by the who would bleed to death, or die convulsed: truths of physiology, as, in the language at least such a result has sometimes been of BEAUMARCHAIS, man is the only aniobserved among the German and Polish ma,l " qui boit quand il n’a pas soif; et Jews. "A bloody husband," said ZIPPORAH qui fait l’amour en tout temps." to MosEs, "art thou, because of the circumThe Levites (the priests or learned caste) were the medical advisers of the people: cision." Animals were allowed for food, but a great they were remunerated from the tithe, and many species were prohibited. "Whatso- received offerings on recovery. JEHOVAH ever," says the Jewish law, "parteth the himself was his people’s physician ; and on and religious hoof, is cloven.-footed, and cheweth the cud, condition of their hygeinic " ye may eat:" swine were excluded because obedience, declares, I will take sickness they did not ruminate ; coneys and hares away from the midst of thee; the number of because their hoof was not divided. The prohibition of hares would recal to mind the ’ Animal food is so abundant in some parts of modern Game Laws, were it not in con- South America, in Cliili, for instance, that it is not formity with a principle; and did we not uncommon in that country to lill a large beast for know that MosEs always carried out his the sake of the single meat of a few pounds weight, which a few travellers can make from certain parts principles to their most rigorous conse- of its carcass, the remainder being left on the plains in the to appease the hunger and gratify the palates of aiiiquences. Birds of prey, "whatever Waters hath neither scales nor fins, what. mals which are less delicate of taste than man, soever goeth upon its paws," and all flying when flesh has been for a few hours exposed to the

peformed

creeping things, except locusts, grasshop-

pers, and

beetle were forbidden. The lat-

heat of a climate within the torrid zone. In such a fact the statement of Bmce may have originated.—

ED. L.

243

thy days

I will fulfil "-the great aims ofwaste occasioned by death

or war, on nunithe Israelites a second time, at the Mosrs, assisted by the princes of each expiration of thirty-eight years, the great tribe and the High Priest, made two enu- legislator records with dignified satisfaction, merations of the people, distinguishing that the males of twenty years old and " their families by the house of their fa- upwards still amounted to 601,730, anithers, with the number of their names, mated by a very different spirit, and a far every male by their poll, from twenty years higher degree of vitality, than languished old and upwards, all that were able to go round the whitened bones which were forth to war in Israel." The first census sleeping in the desert. With the prophet was made by assembling the congregation called to curse them, gazing on one hand over were about to possess, on together on the first day of the second the country they month, in the second year after they were the other over " Israel abiding in his tents;" come out of Egypt: 603,550 males above his enrapturedlips mightwell exclaim, "Who the age of twenty were enumerated. The can count the dust ofJACOS? How goodly force of each tribe is stated ; the Levites, a are thy tents, 0 JACOB’ and thy tabernacles, month old and upwards, amounted to 22,000; 0 Israel ! As the valleys are they spread the first-born of all Israel to 22,274. The forth, as the cedar tree beside the waters. males above twenty in western Europe con- GoD brought him forth out of Egypt. He stitute about a quarter of the total popula- couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a tion, so that 600,000 males imply a total great lion, who shall stir him up !" Thus population of 2,400,000. Many believe that MosEsleft the Israelites, a numerous nation, there is an error in this enumeration, but it raised by great principles, a system of laws, is not necessary to examine the arguments and hygeinic adaptations from slavery, and on either side here ; I only call your atten- perfectly fitted to its great destiny; and thus tion to it as the first census recorded, and he accomplished one of the most interesting to the fact that MOSES employed this enu- physical regenerations recorded in early hismeration of the males of twenty years old tory. In contemplating this mighty work, and upwards, as a measure of the strength shadowing forth preconceived ideas, and the of the population at his disposal. result of theoretical principles, rigorously Before him were the thousands of Israel and sometimes cruelly enforced, the fugireluctantly torn from slavery, debased in in- tive herdsman of Jethro, on the volcanic tellect, and corrupted by circumstances, but Sinai, standing before a rebellious people, now safe from Egyptian pursuit: Let us ask and viewed with an enlightened philosophy, " what was the hygeinic problem which must remain for ever sublime in character, Mosr..s had to solve?" His great and as he was conceived by ANGELO. avowed purpose was to put the Israelites Turning now from Egypt and the southern in possession of Palestine, already fenced shores of the Mediterranean, let us direct with walled cities, and guarded by a war- our attention, northwards, to the coast of like population ; the difficulties to be over- Asia Minor and Greece, where the first temcome were the traversing of an unculti- ples were raised to ESCULAPTUS and Hvvated but not extensive desert, obtaining GEiA, and where human culture developed supplies of food, and converting a race to a high degree all the physical and psywho were rendered dastanlly and feeble by chical powers of our nature. The constitution of Sparta, founded on bondage into the warlike progenitors of an exterminating people, to extend its num- simple principles, and professing as its deterbers from Lebanon to the Euphrates. Led mined purpose, the development and equal to action in the first year, the unwarlike distribution of physical strength and vitality combatants, affrighted by the Egyptians, and among all the citizens, presents another reeasily turned aside by other small tribes, markable example of the influence ofhygeinic driven back by the Amorites, like agents on races of men. Some degree of were surarms of bees. MOSES, from the moment uncertainty hangs over the early history of of that defeat, devoted the entire generation Lacedemonia and that of its lawgiver LyWe do not know in what precise to death in the " terrible wilderness," where cuRGus. pestilence, thirst, and hunger, in the course hygeinic condition he found and left that of forty years, destroyed all that bore arms people ; but it is almost certain, that after (above twenty years of age), and only al-journeying several years, studying the laws lowed the stronger children to grow up for of Minos, comparing the effects of Cretan the purposes of war, disciplined by the Mo- simplicity with Ionian luxury, and making saic laws. In the accomplishment of his himself acquainted with the physical condidesigns, the lawgiver spared no lives : at tion and the philosophic doctrines of the Sinai 3000 rebels of his own people were surrounding nations, LYCURGUS returned slaughtered. The conquered tribes were to Sparta, and established a new legislaexterminated, and their riches were appro- tion, founded on education, which he looked priated ; or the women only, who had not upon " as the greatest and most glorious known men, were saved, to augment the work of a lawgiver." The children were number of children. Notwithstanding thetalight to endure labour, to fight, and to our

art.

bering

244 conquer ; went

they

were

lodged

in the country ; the

barefooted, played naked

or wore one

hygeine of ancient

and barbarous

na.

tions, for their institutions embody the practices not only of the early, but of the modern

upper garment, and slept together on rushes. They were fed on coarse spare uncivilized nomad and fixed tribes which are diet, exposed to alternations of hunger and scattered over the earth, and present them in thirst, bodily suffering, and fatigue, and a tangible, but improved and refined system. practised severe gymnastic exercises. After Hunger and necessity exposed the North an animal is born, its character and nature American Indian to the hardships and dan. So the education of Ly- gers, the alternations of heat and cold, the are cast and fixed. He sought at inanition and fulness which the Spartan laws CURGU3 began before birth. its source and root to fashion the Spartan enjoined; the Indians were taught manual race in the iron mould of his system; for dexterity; their eye and senses were keen; this purpose he first reduced, according to they too could endure corporal snffering, ARISTOTLE, the women to some rule : " he and smile in the very pangs of death ; they ordered the virgins to exercise themselves also disciplined their women, and abandoned in running, wrestling, and throwing quoits their weak children. And so it was not, only and darts; that their bodies being strong in North America, but in South America, and vigorous, the children afterwards pro- and among all the vigorous races of savage duced from them might be the same. At men which we now call " barbarians." In order to understand a system which certain festivals they sang and danced, unapparelled, but with all modesty, before attempted to augment the sum of a people’s the fathers, the young men, and all but the vitality, by eliminating and pruning remocked and scorned bachelors of the city; morselessly away all the weak shoots, and, to use the expression of PLATO, drew imagine 1800 children born on the same day the young almost as necessarily by the at- at Sparta. They are taken before the elders, tractions of love, as a geometrical conclusion and a certain number are rejected; those follows from the premises. On marriage, that are strong and well-proportioned are the bride was carried off by violence ; and carefully educated, and their bodies are te-monly seen illicitly by the bridegreoin, neither pered by discipline to the circumstances in oppressed by wine, nor enervated by luxury which they are destined to move; after the (Plutarch). The father could not rear his expiration of twelve years, only 1000 reown offspring before he had carried it to the main. Now conceive the same number elders; who, if the child was strong and well- (1800) born in a neighbouring city, where proportioned, left it with the mother, and the circumstances are nearly the same, with gave orders for its education by the the exception that all the weakly children state; but if it was weakly and deformed, are tenderly brought up, till they are driven commanded it to be thrown into a deep ca- by necessity from their parents’ arms. How The many of such children would be alive at the vern near the mountain Taygetus. women, too, washed their new-born babes end of twelve years ? Not all, but probably with wine, to try, PLUTARCH correctly adds, more than 1000; more lives would exist than 61 their habit of body ; imagining that sickly at Sparta, but the vitality of many of these and epileptic children would sink and die saved children would be feeble, their lifeunder the experiment, while the healthy time would be impaired by sickness, and would become more vigorous and hardy." afterwads, in youth and in manhood, they be swept away by the implacable seThe public education began at the age of seven years. For further details on the Spartan verities ofarude and uncivilized state,if these education, I must refer to PLUTARCH, were not by some accident averted. If they XENOPHON, and PAuw. These outlines lived to possess offspring, and that offspring present a picture sufficiently revolting to extended to three or four tuberculous, scrothe better feeling of this age,-to us of the fulous, enfeebled generations, their propornineteenth century, who send foundlings to tion would be augmented ; while organic hospitals, nurse scrofulous infants, and edu- debility was weeded from the Lacedemocate the children, even of the labouring poor, nians, the North-American Indians, and in workhouses. Yet revolting as this system vigorous barbarians, in its germ, by the laws, seems, it formed LEONIDAS, and the three and by the stem discipline of nature. The Russians, in an extreme climate of hundred who fought and died at Thermopylae " to obey the sacred laws of their rapidly alternating heat and cold, still bathe country." It was founded on physiological their young infants in the cold rivers, and laws, and realized at a great expense of suf - then bring them suddenly to the warm fering and life, the idea of LYCURGUS, in stoves, to harden their constitution, accordproducing a chosen nation, endowed with ing to Russian writers. I shall prove from extraordinary energy and an uncommon de- experiments, and the relative mortality of infants in the warm and cold months, that gree of vitality. This investigation of the hygeinic legis- extreme cold destroys the young of all warmlation of the Hebrews and the Spartans, ap- blooded animals ; whence it may be inferred pears to me to preclude, to a certain extent, that these cold-baths are a summary subthe necessity of further historic inquiry intostitute for both the Spartan examination, and

would

245

Taygetus. That some you will find that the system of breeding of mortality exists among the and training- directed not to, increase the Russian children none will doubt, when longevity of those animals, but to give them they learn from Sir FRANCIS D’lvERNOlS, muscular strength, velocity, and sagacity, or that at Nigni, near Novogorod, out of 1000 simply weight and flesh,-has been eminentbaptisms, 661 die before attaining their ly successful. I will not here dwell on the fifteenth year; but whether the cold-baths, system which those who breed these anithe cold climate, or the want of food, con- mals adopt; I shall recur to that on another tributes most to this lamentable destruc- occasion, and now only call your attention tion, we cannot decide. It is generally to one fact-viz. that they invariably reject, agreed that there is a considerable propor- and never breed from, those animals which tion of old men in Russia, and this has been do not possess that vigour, sagacity, or welladduced in proof of the longevity and health favoured aspect, which they aim at renderof the entire population. ing permanent in a race. If every sickly, Among the most civilized nations of puny, cowardly, stupid individual, was nemodern Europe, out of 1600 or 1800 chil- cessarily retained, and all were allowed to dren born, only 1000 remain alive at the end associate promiscuously, the present perfect of the 12th year. According to the accurate animals would speedily degenerate, like negcalculations of Mr. EDMONDS, founded on lected uncultivated vegetables, to their prithe last population and parish register mitive state of wildness. The extension of returns, the annual deaths in England and these principles, deduced from the observaWales, for the first five years of life, were tion of domesticated animals to the human 46 per cent. in the six years elapsing be- species, constituted a main feature of the tween 1818-24. Admit that the mortality laws we have just passed in review ; many in infancy had been greater, and that many of which are now, happily, discountenanced, of the weaker children had perished, is it alike by humanity, and a more enlightened not probable that the mortality in manhood hygeine, and by all the governments of civilwould have proportionally declined? The ized Europe, except Russia. In the next state of mortality in Belgium entitles us to lecture we shall examine the hygeinic answer this in the affirmative. In doctrines of HIPPOCRATES, GALEN, and the Belgium, 1)6 infants, between birth and moderns, and present some illustrations of five years of age, die annually per thousand; the innuence, and the means of measuring and in manhood, between twenty and thirty influence, of hygeinic agents. years of age, 9 ; between thirty and forty, exactly 10 per thousand perish; while, at the same ages in England, 10 and 12, instead of 9 and 10 per thousand are ON THE lost. You perceive here an oscillation in the line of vitality,-in the proportion beTREATMENT OF FRACTURES tween the dying and the living. If it is OF SPLINTS. WITHOUT THE AID lowered at one time, it rises correspondingly at another. Again, where the temperaBy W. C. RADLEY, Esq., M.R.C.S.L., ture, the place, or the social condition, renders Newton Abbott, Devonshire. life difficult of preservation,-where the external hygeinic conditions on which our phy(Continued from page 174.) siological processes depend are unfavourable, - the deaths in infancy are immensely augTHE importance of the primary treatmented, in order to raise the subsequent period, destined for the production of the ment of fractures during the first three, and species to a certain pitch of vitality, below up to ten days, of itself constitutes an which its generations would cease. In apology for stating what every surgeon the cold climate of Sweden, instead of 45, knows, viz., that the weak lotion of a soas in England, 90 per 1000 died annually lution of superacetate of lead, in the proin infancy (1755-75). Between the ages portion of a drachm to a pint of pure of twenty and forty, however, the mortal- water, can be converted into a decided asity was not quite so great as in this coun- tringent and repellent, in cases of tumefactry. In Stockholm, out of 3000 born, only tion, by adding sixty or a hundred grains of 1000 survived the twelfth year. You con- alum to the lotion. I know of no better loceive, perhaps, now, that notwithstanding tion to fulfil the latter intention than such the sacrifices of infants, the sum of vitality an application, to wet a bandage. " Pour le may, possibly, have been as great in Sparta plaisir de changer," we have the liquor as in other and worse climates, where cold aluminis compositus of the London Pharmadestroyed the young, or even in the same copoeia, perhaps too strong by twice over; climate where the infants were reared. but that can be modified ad libitum. With If, for a moment, you examine the fine these, and a watery solution of opium, and races of dogs, of sheep, of oxen, in this coun- many other vegetable infusions of the narthe

deep

great

cavern near

cause

question

the

try,

or

the fleet

race

of English race-horses, cotic edative class,

we

need not imitate