man, and would swing for it at Newgate. If there was an innate, congenital, and universal monitor, or conscience, independent of education, the Hindoo would not hold it a crime to slaughter a cow on the banks of the Ganges, while the cockney looked upon it as no sin at all in Smithfield. Where is this innate monitor, when the Otaheitan slaughters and eats his enemy, at which the conscience of the Christian revolts? But why need we multiply examples. It is as clear as the sun at noon-day, that to the immortal soul is given an understanding, by which it learns good and evil according as it is taught. It has no innate power or conscience, by which it can discriminate good from evil, independent of education. If there was such a power, what need had we of revealed religion, to direct us to the one, and to guard us against the other? If there was an innate power or conscience, there could be no exceptions. Our author, however, thinks that there are such exceptions, and that the individuals thus excepted from the influence of conscience should be treated as insane. The following passage will illustrate Dr. Mayo's notions on this point.

"Mr. A. was born in a respectable station, and is in possession of a good fortune, of as much, at least, as he has allowed to remain out of a good fortune. He has a wife and children, and as many friends, or rather associates, as his convivial qualities retain for him, in spite of the hardness of his character. He has always been profusely extravagant; for his passions and appetites have compelled him to squander money, which he would probably have hoarded, if his selfishness had taken that turn. His temper is at once stern and violent; and all who know him expect that the dispositions of his will must prove him, to the last moment of his life, utterly unjust. If he had sufficient courage he would rob or murder; for his cupidity is under no moral check; but he is naturally very timid, and owes to this circumstance his freedom from such acts as the law construes into crimes. Such is Mr. A., and such also, or as nearly such, as the distinctive

points which separate all individuals will allow, is Mr. G. his neighbour. But there happens to exist a peculiarity in the latter, which materially alters the course of his life, and its results upon others. Mr. G. was observed to talk very much to himself. This excited attention; and, on further inquiry, it was discovered that he was habitually under the influence of false perceptions, and that he considered himself solicited by certain voices, audible only to himself, to perform those actions which indeed flowed naturally enough from his own evil dispositions. Mr. G. was accordingly recognized as a lunatic, and placed under restraint. Thus the family of Mr. G. is secured against the results of his moral character; and his fortune will descend according to the principles of law; thus dealing out a justice to others, and a protection to him, which would have been refused, but for this hallucination."

We certainly think it would be very desirable, if every man who is in the habit of injuring his family, or even himself,by his vices, his follies,or his extravagances could be checked; but then, to decide such knotty points of moral conduct, and to measure with exactness the length and breadth of a man's conscience, we must have a jury of moral philosophers and metaphysicians, with Dr. Mayo as the foreman-for we are quite sure that no common or special jury would be able to decide such questions.

Dr. M. proceeds to inquire into the analogy which this "moral insanity" bears to the commonly recognized, or "intellectual insanity." The following passage embodies this analogy, and also gives us a definition of insanity—a thing very much needed in the present state of our knowledge.

"Both perception and reflection in the insane intellect are governed by laws absolutely different from those which are recognized by the common perceptions of mankind. This, however, happens also to persons whom it would be absurd to call insane, or even eccentric. Thus a person under an excited state of mind, or in ill health, sees visions and hears voices equally

foreign to the common perceptions of mankind with those of the lunatic. The difference between the insane and all others who have similarly erroneous perceptions, is, that the latter are possessed of a power by which they can question the justness of their own perceptions, the insane have no such power; for when they begin to make use of such a power, they are so far convalescent. But as the erroneous notions which the insane intellect forms respecting the objects of sight cannot be referred by it by any test of their soundness, as possessed by it in common with the rest of mankind; so the conduct suggested by the inclinations and tendencies of the vicious in the sense in which we are now estimating vice, cannot receive any modification from a reference to a moral sense or common feeling of approbation. The analogy may be pursued further: for persons thus destitute of the moral sense may, from the very absence of a conflicting principle such as it would supply, move much more smoothly through their course of wickedness, than criminals of an opposite kind, namely, those who do wrong, 'having a law in themselves, their consciences bearing witness, and their thoughts accusing them; and so also the progress through life of persons intellectually insane, is often very quiet and regular, far more so, at least than that of many persons justly considered sane, but exposed, from the very struggles of their reason with antagonist principles of the intellect, to constant uncertainties and doubts, which the insane are exempt from. Many a person, indeed,

'Cui sic absumpta voluptas Et de tus per vim mentis gratissimus error,' may envy the contented and self-satisfied lunatic.

Without supposing myself to have exhausted the points of analogy between these states of moral and intellectual deficiency, enough has, I think, been adduced to warrant our assuming, that the absence of the moral sense constitutes a form of unsoundness, analogous to that intellectual unsoundness, which is commonly understood when the term

insanity is used; and, accordingly, that we may talk of a moral and of an intellectual insanity as contradistinguished species."

Dr. Mayo asks, is it not probable that the same treatment may be applicable to the moral depravity as to the mental derangement? We think that, as far as prevention goes (which is said to be better than cure), a cell in a madhouse would very effectually prevent the commission of crimes-and especially the extravagance of spendthrifts; but if this kind of moral insanity were to come under the law, where, in God's name, would we find prisons? Well may Dr. Mayo say," that the difficulty of finding that point, beyond which rice may be considered as the subject of coercion on the ground of unsoundness, will necessarily be great." A little farther on our author remarks-" the above considerations may appear to many persons absolutely erroneous: others may think them theoretically correct, but impracticable." We acknowledge that we are among the latter. For, even if the suggestion of Dr. Mayo, that common juries should be superseded by scientific, were put in practice, we are quite confident that twelve doctors would not be brought to agree upon any one case of moral delinquency, unless there were symp toms of common or intellectual insanity present. Dr. Mayo is an excellent physician, and, we have no doubt, a very clever and subtle metaphysician; but we suspect that, like an illustrious statesman and philosopher of this country, he is

"Too fond of the right to pursue the expedient," and perhaps addicted, like the same personage, to-" cut blocks with a razor."

CLIMATE OF THE LANDS END.

From a very able and elaborate paper on the medical topography of the hundred of Penwith, district of the Landsend, by Dr. Forbes, of Chichester, and published in the transactions of the Provincial Medical Association, we ex

Landsend.. London...

The preceding results place, in a striking point of view, the great peculiarity of the climate of this district, as to temperature: it possesses, as has been already remarked, all the habitudes of a small island remote from any large continent: it exhibits, in a great measure, the qualities of what may be called the ocean climate. This is characterised essentially by a remarkable degree of equability of temperature or small extent of range above or below the mean. In this respect the district of the Landsend is superior to any other part of England, and, indeed, to any place in Europe of which we possess meteorological accounts Madeira is the only climate which Dr. Clark considers as superior in regard to equability of temperature.

As necessary consequences of the greater equability, it will be seen by the preceding statements that, although there is a difference of only 140 between the mean annual temperature of this district and that of London, there is a remarkable discrepancy between the different seasons at the two places. Thus it is seen that while the summer temperature of the district is rather more than 20 lower than that of London, the winter temperature is very nearly 50 higher. The spring temperature of both places differs less than one degree, and

that of autumn is 20 in favour of the Landsend. It thus appears that while the winter is much warmer than that of

London, the summer is considerably cooler; the autumn is as much warmer as the summer is cooler, while the spring is nearly equal at both places. The temperature of the whole spring at Penzance, as taken by the thermometer, is, indeed, rather higher than that of London; still it will be observed, on referring to the tables, that this superiority is derived almost entirely from the month of March, the temperature of April being very nearly the same in both places, while that of May is more than a degree and a half lower at the Landsend.

The singularly small range of the thermometer in this district, gives rise to a remarkable difference in the relation of the temperature of the day and night, here and in some inland places; in summer the nights being as much warmer as the days are cooler, and in the winter both the nights and days being warmer. This will appear in a striking manner by comparing together the mean of the extremes, i. e. of the highest and lowest degrees of temperature as shown by the register thermometer during the two seasons, at London and Penzance.

MR. SANDWITH ON THE NATURE AND TREATMENT OF WHOOPING-COUGH.

In a late Number of Dr. Hunter Lane's Monthly Archives, there is a paper of much research and practical discrimination on the above subject, from the pen of Mr. Sandwith, of Bridlington, who witnessed an epidemic, in the year 1830, of whooping-cough. In the majority of cases that presented themselves to Mr. S. there were evidences of acute or subacute inflammation. In the latter cases, the disease was greatly moderated by leeches to the region of thyroid cartilage, as recommended by Dr. Dawson. When the head was affected, the leeches were best applied between the shoulder-blades, with calomel, pulv. Jacobi, and the usual adjuvants. "Several examples of the disease, however, in its more exquisite forms, demanded more energetic means to subdue the inflammation. In some of these cases, the child lay constantly struggling under the aggravated dyspnoea of acute bronchitis, that "permanent difficulty of breathing, which continues between the coughing fits," as described by Darwin. As might be expected, there was considerable mortality where professional aid had not been sought.

In these cases, it was necessary to combine local and general bleeding with emetics, the warm bath, calomel purgatives, and blisters. The strong tendency to cerebral congestion deterred from the use of opium, in the form of Dover's powder, to any extent. The following case affords a striking example of metastasis from the mucous membranes of the brain.

"Master S. aged 4, became affected by whooping-cough in May. The attack was severe, but without producing acute symptoms of bronchitis; emetics, purgatives, and the prussic acid made no decided impression on the complaint. After exposure to cold, in the latter end of June, his cough suddenly left him; and general lassitude, loss of appetite, and increased fever ishness supervened. The fever, with symptoms of cerebral irritation, increased from the 24th to the 30th,

when actual phrenitis demanded more active treatment than the less violent anti-inflammatory remedies hitherto used. About a teacupful of blood was taken from the arm on that day, and seconded by leeches and free purgation. The general bleeding was repeated on the first of July, and leeches to the temples and the sides of the neck were afterwards several times freely employed. Sleeplessness, and that delirious anguish which mark cerebral inflammation in children, were prominent and distressing features during the severity of the attack; there was also, for a day or two, rigidity of the spinal muscles, and a peculiar drooping of the head to the left side, with a semi-rotatory motion. The symptoms of cerebral irritation, though moderated by active treatment, did not wholly decline before a fortnight had elapsed from the time of the first general bleeding. The emaciation was equal to what we observe in the most protracted cases of fever. The first clear proof of the entire removal of cerebral irritation was a return of the cough, with its distinctive whoop, which continued in a mild form during the whole period of convalescence. Natural and refreshing sleep, at first excessively profound succeeded to the long-continued scenes of excitement. A change of air finally removed the cough, and asses' milk repaired the wastes of the system. The case just described illustrates the truth of Dr. Palmer's remark relative to the complications of whooping-cough, that they will demand, with great vigilance and energy, a variation of practice precisely corresponding with such change."

THE MORBUS ORYZEUS.

Our readers are aware with what un

* "An interesting case of whoopingcough alternating with measles, and re-appearing on the decline of the latter, is related by Dr. Ferriar.- Vide Medical Histories and Reflections, vol. iii. p. 217.