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naturally, while they are cloathing them in the moft polished terms afforded by the languages in which they write.

To conclude. Though we cannot approve the high ftrain panegyric in which the Oriental tafte in gardening is here celebrated, nor the unjust contempt with which our ingenious countrymen are treated,-yet our candour will not fuffer us to with-hold from this performance the praife which is its due, viz. that it affords, among a multitude of extravagancies, a few hints of improvement which we may adopt without fcruple, and follow with advantage.

**We must not forget to mention that a sketch of this work appeared fome years ago. Accordingly, the Author informs his readers that the favourable reception granted to that little performance, induced him to collect materials for this."

MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For AUGUST, 1772.

MEDICA L.

Art. 12. Reflections and Obfervations on the Gout. By Sir James Jay, Knt. M. D. 8vo. 2 s. Kearfly.

SUCH

1772.

UCH is the peculiar complection of this pamphlet, that the arthritic who would profit from the Author's knowledge of the disease of which he treats, has no other way of availing himself of that advantage, than by putting himfelf under the immediate care of the Writer of it. Nay even the faculty will not find themselves very confiderably enlightened by any thing that the Doctor has chofen to communicate in this publication, with regard to the particular nature of this distemper, or his avowedly fuccefsful method of treating it. It must be acknowledged, nevertheless, that it contains fome feufible but very general obfervations, on the proper courfe to be pursued in investigating the nature of the gout; the general tendency of which is to recommend a proper freedom of thinking on this difeafe, which has been the object of the moft extravagant and contradictory theories among phyficians, and of the molt abfurd and groundless boafts among the herd of empirics.

Thus far the Author's defign is commendable, and it is doing him only common juice to obferve that his reflections on the errors of preceding writers, and on the caufes which gave birth to them, are judicious and well founded. No lefs commendable is his conclufion, that the only way to arrive at a real knowledge of the nature and cure of the gout, is patiently to collect accurate defcriptions of cafes, under all the varieties of circumstances, produced by different caufes, and relieved, cured, or injured by different means.'

Accordingly, and apparently in profecution of this judicious plan, thefe general reflections are followed by the hiftories of feveral gouty cafes that had fallen under the Author's management. - But here the man of science suddenly takes his leave of us, and appears to affume a different character. From thefe hiftories the expecting Reader can collect no useful information, except it fhould prove of advantage to

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him to be informed that the Doctor (who however does not pretend to be in poffeffion of any noftrum or fpecific for the gout) is poffeffed of a peculiarly fuccefsful method of treating this refractory diftemper. In thefe exhibitions of the Author's fkill and prowess, we behold the difeafe, in the manifeftly unequal conflict between them, fullenly retreating, and the Doctor gradually gaining ground on his churlish antagonist, and at length fairly driving him off the stage.But the machinery by which thefe happy movements are effected is moft affiduously concealed; nor is a fingle glimpfe to be obtained by the most prying fpectator, of the latent fprings and wires by which the grand mover, behind the curtain, produces thefe falutary changes in the scene. In fhort, this pamphlet evidently appears to be what the French call une bonnete affiche, that is, a creditable kind of advertisement, infinuating that the Writer of it understands the nature of the difeafe in queftion better than his neighbours, and that he is qualified to give fuperior relief to thofe afflicted with it.

We fhall not difpute the truth of thefe pofitions, nor question the authenticity of the hiftories, from which the Reader is naturally led to draw conclufions of this kind for himself: though the cafes are not authenticated upon oath, as is the practice of our numerous medical advertisers of inferior rank; who choose, like our Author, to be upon the reserve with the public, as to the means by which they daily and miraculously relieve fo many of their fellow-creatures, abandoned by the reft of the faculty. Some reafons are offered by the Author for his uncommunicativeness: but a certain inoftenfible and not very creditable reason will naturally occur to the Reader, which is not even hinted at in this very lame apology.

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Art. 13. An Essay on the Nature and Caufes of the Gout, with a few Conjectures on the Probability of its Cure. By Marmaduke Berdoe, M. D. 8vo. I s. 6d. Bath printed. Sold by Lowndes in London. 1772.

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This gentleman has, within a very short space of time, furnished us with two occafions of animadverting on his productions*; and we are forry that we now find ourselves under the neceffity of speaking rather unfavourably of a third-fo far at least as to declare that we can find no new or useful information in it; though, to use his own words, it contains the views in which he has been taught to confider the gout, with Hippocrates, Hoffman, and Staahl, under the friendly intructions of Meffrs. Robert, de Bordeu, Fouquet, &c.' -In fhort, of that galaxy of French medical luminaries, whofe fhining lights this Writer has undertaken to difplay, for the illumi nation of his countrymen. And yet to thefe gentlemen, as it ap pears to us, we are indebted for most of the obfcure jargon in the

* See Monthly Review for April laft, page 443 and 445.

We should perhaps except a short hiftory which the Author gives of the brilliant effects' of the Hyoscyamus albus, or Henbane, lately administered with fuccefs in the cafe of a rheumatic gout of long ftanding, by Dr. Fouquet at Montpelier; who likewife performs very furprizing cures with it,' in the Military Hofpital at that place, in the fcrophula and cancerous complaints.?

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theoretical

theoretical part of this performance, concerning the propulfive force,' the fenfibility, action, and expanfion of the phrenic centres,' the ofcillations of the various fluids towards the interior region,' and many other terms equally vague, uninstructive, and unintelligible; but which occur almost in every paragraph, and are introduced to explain every appearance.

The whole drift of this effay appears to be nothing more than to fhew that there is a connection between the gout, dropfy, cholic, &c, and the hypochondriac paffion; that the gout may be confidered as an acute paroxyfm of the hypochondriac diforder; that the hæmorrhoidal flux is falutary in this laft-mentioned disease, and confequently is beneficial in the gout. To evince thefe truths, a few meagre cafes are added, which are really fingular, for their tritenefs. and infignificance. As a fpecimen of the oftentatious poverty of this part of the prefent publication, we fhall give one of the Author's cafes intire; where we find him taking a weary and needlefs journey as far as Siberia, only to prove, with the greater parade, that cold may produce a discharge of blood upwards and downwards, 'by an ofcillation of the humours being thrown upon the intestinal canal.' The Abbé Chappe, as we have formerly related, was feized with the bloody flux and a fpitting of blood in Siberia. [Monthly Rev. Dec. 1769, p. 434.] This event, which might have happened under the line, furnishes the Author with his

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Eighth Obfervation.'

The Abbé Chappe, a celebrated aftronomer, was fent into Siberia to obferve the tranfit of Venus. He had fcarce been more than three or four months in that country, before he fuffered fo confiderable a lofs of blood by vomiting and fool, that he found himfelf obliged to quit it with the utmott expedition.'

Why will Writers thus claim the attention of the public, when they have nothing either new or ufeful to communicate to them? Art. 14. Dr. Cadogan's Differtation on the Gout, and all other Chronic Difeafes, examined and refuted. In a Letter to the Author, by John Berkenhout, M. D. 8vo. 1 S. Bladon. 1772.

This very fenfible and facetious Anfwerer has no mercy on the errors in fact and in doctrine that he meets with in Dr. Cadogan's Differtation. Accordingly he occafionally hits the Doctor fome hard raps, not ill applied; for which he apologizes, by obferving that controverfy is dull, and requires a little zeft to keep the Reader's attention awake. The Reader is doubtlefs obliged to him for this very palatable mixture of fcience and pleafantry; but how Dr. Cadogan will relish the compofition, we know not.

Art. 15. Reflections ferving to illuftrate the Doctrine advanced by Dr. Cadogan, on the Gout and all Chronic Difeafes. By Thomas Dray, Surgeon. 8vo. 6d. Canterbury printed. Sold by Hawes and Co. in London. 1772.

This Illuftrator of Dr. Cadogan's doctrine, throws no light, that we can discover, on the fubject. He feems horribly apprehenfive (and indeed fcarce talks of any thing elfe) of acids, and of the prevalence of an acid acrimony. He tells us how acids weaken the powers of nature'-that it was a faving, when he was very young, Rev. Aug. 1772.

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that

that acids produce the gout'-and how, having a pain in his stomach, he once drank plenty of water acidulated with spirit of vitriol at his dinner, and could get no reft, poor gentleman! till he threw all his dinner up again.-In fhort, we think the public might have been fpared these very unimportant, rambling reflections; the Writer of which, in general, appears the mere echo of Dr. Cadogan's doctrines, and, as other echoes are wont to do, fends them back with diminished force.

Art. 16. Sermons to the Rich and Studious, on Temperance and Exercife. With a Dedication to Dr. Cadogan. By a Physician. 12mo. IS. Dilly. 1772.

This phyfician affumes the gown and band, and inculcates, ex cathedra, in a very agreeable and energetic manner, the fundamen tal doctrines of man's bodily falvation in three difcourfes; in the firft of which he speaks of temperance in eating. In the fecond, he recommends the ufe, and diffuades his fuppofed hearers from the abuse, of wine and ftrong drink. In the third, he lays before them the comforts and advantages of exercise, as equally conducive to the health of the body and the vigour of the mind. He alternately addreffes the reason and the paffions of his audience. He is fometimes didactic, and at other times defcriptive and pathetic. In fome points he differs from his lay brother, to whom these discourses are addressed; though like him he maintains fome fingular opinions. On the whole, the difcourfes of this Medical Preacher may be read with pleasure, and not without fome degree of edification.

Art. 17. Corrections in Verfe, from the Father of the College, on Son Cadogan's Gout Differtation: Containing falfe Phyfic, falfe Logic, falfe Philofophy. By Sir William Browne. 4to. 6d. Dodley.

1772.

More gouty matter ftill!-But by the title furely these should be verfes, and thould accordingly figure among our poetry -It may be fo: but the foregoing gouty groupe cannot, we think, be more properly clofed than with these hobbling lines; of which we shall take a hafty leave, by giving one of the last distichs, addressed to Dr. Cadogan, which may ferve at once as a fpecimen, and as a very proper address from us (making only the neceffary changes of perfons) to this equally pitilefs and deplorable bard:

V. 186. Thus, the beft thing, Sir William, We can fay, Is, We leave you, IN MISERICORDIA!' Art. 18. Select Cafes in the Practice of Medicine. By John Bris bane, M. D. Member of the R. College of Physicians, and Senior Physician to the Middlefex Hofpital. 8vo. 1 s. 6 d. Cadell.

3772.

These few cafes are not published, as the Author obferves, to amuse those who love the obfcure and marvellous,' but with a view to fhew what may be done, even in rare and dangerous diseases, by the use of medicines of the most fimple kind. The four first cafes relate to that very rare disease, the true diabetes, as described by Aretæus, and which the Author cured or relieved by the use of cantharides, which he was induced to exhibit on a fuppofition that the diftemper might, in fome cafes at least, be produced by a paralyfis

of

of the, nerves of the urinary paffages. The two cafes that follow contain the history and cure of a difeafe in the cefophagus, fimilar to that defcribed by Dr. Munckley in the first volume of the Medical Tranfactions; and which, though probably not of the venereal kind, yielded to a fpitting excited by mercury. Three cafes are next related of malignant ulcers, one of them evidently of a cancerous nature, cured only by the ufe of a decoction of farfaparilla. These are followed by a fhort and not fufficiently circumftantial history of fome schirrous tumours in the breaft of a woman, tending to a cancerous ftate, and which had eluded every common method of relief, but yielded to the daily ufe of the electrical machine; by which the fchirrous tumours were confiderably diffolved, and the pains gradually diminished, and at length totally removed. The Author concludes with the accounts of two nervous or paralytic cases, in which the wild valerian root appeared to have performed the chief part of the cure; and with the hiftory of a leprous or fcaly cutaneous diforder, which feems to have been removed principally by the exhibition of the antimonial wine.

Art. 19. A Differtation upon Nervous Ganglions, and Nervous Plexus. By John Caverhill, M. D. Member of the R. College of Phyficians, and F. R. S. 8vo. 1 s. 6d. Robfon. 1772.

We muft honestly confefs that we fat down to the perufal of this Differtation not without fome degree of prejudice, produced by a fomewhat unlucky declaration of the Author in the front of it; the fole purport of which is to intimate that the obfervations contained in it tend to confirm a part of his hypothefis concerning the caufe of animal heat. Those who have perufed this Writer's fingular and; extravagant fyftem on this fubject, or who have feen our fhort ftrictures upon it, will not wonder at the effects of this declaration; when they recollect that he attributes the production of animal heat to the friction of the nervous fluid, or matter, paffing through the nervous tubali, with the inconceivable rapidity of about a foot in a fortnight. In this ftate of mind we may be thought partial judges of the truth and folidity of the Author's prefent theory:-but indeed neither will our limits allow us to difcufs this very obfcure and intricate fubject. We fhall therefore only briefly obferve that the Author's opinion concerning the ufes of the ganglions appears to have been principally founded on an obfervation made on the diffection of a dog, who was fubject to fingular convulfions of the fore thigh, fynchronous to every pulfation of the arterial fyftem; the cause of which involuntary motions the Author attributed to a ganglion which he discovered in the limb, in contact with an artery. The refult of his fubfequent diffections and obfervations was that all the ganglions in the body are always placed in contact with arteries, or with parts endowed with conftant motion;' and his principal inference feems to be that the gangiions being thereby fubjected to a continued series of impulfes, are deftined to accelerate the nervous influence, and to excite involuntary motion.

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* Monthly Review, vol. xliii. September 1770, page 212.

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