theker, who is bona fide possessor of a shop, the Pächter, or tenant who hires such of an apothecary or his relatives, and the Provisor, who is a dispenser employed by an apothecary unable to manage his own concerns, or by his widow or friends, &c.; and, finally, the Gehülfe, or journeyman employed under any of these. No apothecary or doctor of chemistry can hold two establishments.

And the following are some of the principal rules concerning the duties of apothecaries, and the sale as well as composition of medicines:

All poisons are required to be kept under lock and key, and can only be compounded by the head of the establishment. All powerful medicines, as emetics, drastic purges, strong mercurial compounds, and narcotics, and all the preparations marked thus + in the tax-book, are not permitted to be sold without the recipe of an authorised practitioner. No apothecary dare, under the severest penalties, alter any item in a prescription. It is likewise set forth in the regulations, that unless the prescription is clearly written, and the apothecary fully understands it, he is forbidden to compound it. On the death, sickness, or absence of an apothecary, the director sends a provisor at once to fill his place until such is done, no medicine can be sold or compounded in the establishment. Apothecaries known to sell medicines that might procure abortion, without the order of a physician, are punished in the severest

manner.

In the remote and country parts of Austria there are but few apothecaries; for, not being allowed to prescribe or practise themselves, and the law permitting their selling but a few simples without a written order, they are almost wholly dependent on the medical practitioner. In such places where both exist, the apothecary dispenses the medicines ordered by the practitioner for the poor of the neighbourhood; his accounts are audited and taxed according to the printed tariff at the end of the year, and he is paid by the local civil authorities.

But it would be impossible to institute similar stringencies and restrictions in Great Britain. Equally impracticable would be the attempt to regulate by act of parliament the fees to be paid to the doctor. This, however, is done in many instances to a nicety in the Austrian dominions :—

The usual fee to a doctor of medicine or surgery is a Gulden müntz (two shillings) for each visit; but this sum varies according to the business or the celebrity of the practitioners, to a ducat or even more. The consultation fee is always a ducat. (A ducat is about 9s. 6d.) The law makes strict provision for the remuneration of medical men in posthumous cases the physician and the apothecary take precedence in this respect of the relatives and legatees. The highest sum made by any physician or surgeon in Vienna is from fifty to sixty thousand florins a year. (About 3,0007.)

The general practitioner also has his fees and duties particularly defined for his guidance.

These practitioners are remunerated according to a regular scale of feesthus, for bleeding, ten to seventeen kreutzers (a farthing is the nearest English coin to the kreutzer ;) for dressing a flesh wound, twenty-four kreutzers; if the wound be of any magnitude, forty-five kreutzers; for the whole attendance on such, from one to two florins in the country, and fifteen to twenty kreutzers in towns; for fractures or lacerated wounds, or injuries of the head, the fees are greater, and also for the general attendance on fractures, &c., as well as for the operation of trepanning, the latter being, by the medical laws of Austria, within the province of persons who are not permitted to prescribe a dose of medicine! If a fire occurs in the neighbourhood, the Wundärzt in whose district it happens is obliged to attend, to be prepared for any accidents that may take place; and in case of the appearance of epidemics, he is obliged immediately to notify such to the head physician and the Local Government office.

The number of these general practitioners in each district is not only limited, but none others are permitted to locate themselves in it, without a special license from the Government; that is, unless the inhabitants of the place desire it.

Each Wundärzt has under his care a certain number of villages, and no other surgeon is allowed to encroach upon his walk, unless sent for by the desire of the patient. Unless the Wundärzt belongs to the Gremium he is not permitted to keep an Officin, or shop, nor to hang out his sign; and he is forbidden to treat any internal disease if there is a physician in his dis

Circumscribed as is his practice, yet he enjoys an immunity from all quacks, who are punished with six months' imprisonment for every offence; and physicians are not allowed to bleed, cup, or in any way interfere with the province of the Wundärzt. If there is not an apothecary within one hour's ride of his residence, then the Wundärzt is permitted to compound and sell a certan limited quantity of medicine.

Perhaps the most novel features in the Austrian medical institutions for the contemplation of British readers, are connected with the lying-in hospitals. The following extraordinary particulars are detailed, relative to the institution at Vienna.

Pregnant women of all grades and of every religious persuasion can avail themselves of the advantages of this asylum: the poor and destitute are admitted gratis, and the rich by paying a certain stated sum: thus it is well adapted to the circumstances of all classes, where poverty and necessity, or where fear and a desire of secrecy induce such to apply for refuge therein, during their hour of trial. Here every comfort is supplied-no visiter can intrude, no law affect, and no authority reach its inmates; nay, more, the very fact of their having been delivered there is inadmissible either as documentary or personal evidence in a court of justice. The whole institution is divided into two great divisions, the paying and non-paying. The former is perfectly distinct from the latter, and consists of three classes: to the first, or highest class, are allotted five neat, well-furnished, and secluded chambers, perfectly distinct and separate from each other, and from the rest of the

establishment: they are guarded with the greatest strictness, and are inaccessible to all but the attendant physician, and if necessary the nurse. Each of these is occupied by one person alone, who pays one florin, twenty kreutzers, or about two shillings and eightpence daily for its use. These are said to be for the young ladies of the Imperial city; and are, I have been credibly informed, sometimes the resort of females from among the highest circles of society.

Then with regard to the system of secrecy here practised, the security even against the vigilance and prying eyes of the police, and the encouragement afforded to the lax in morals, be the) grade what it may to which the female applicant belongs, who seeks for the shelter and assistance of the lying-in establishment:

Not only in the first, but in all the three paying classes, no admission is permitted; none are allowed on any pretext whatever to enter therein, except the immediate attendants; and besides this, the localities of this part are so arranged as to secure those residing therein from the gaze of the curious. The principle of secrecy is imposed as one of the strictest duties on all those in any way engaged in the institution. Should a female desert her family and take shelter here, the vigilance of the police or the inquiries of her friends may trace her to the door of the Gebäranstalt, but no further. Here the executive enters not: such is the law, that not only is a father, or a husband denied an entrance, but he cannot, as has been already observed, receive from the records of the hospital, or any one connected therewith, any testimony of her reception or delivery. Indeed, in many instances, and in almost all the cases occurring among the first or highest class, such evidence could not possibly be obtained; as a female may enter, accomplish her delivery, and depart from the hospital, without her name being known, or even her face seen by the physician or any of the attendants. The entrance into these paying wards is not the same as that leading into the general hospital, but by a private way, ending in a small cul-de-sac, that runs between the ancient Spanish cloister and an adjoining barrack; and as it is forbidden to have any windows looking into this lane, persons approaching that way are perfectly secure from observation. At the end of this cul-de-sac there is one small door, with a bell attached to it; a porter remains at the entrance day and night, and conducts the persons requiring admission to whatever apartment or division they require or their means afford. Persons are allowed to appear masked, veiled, or otherwise disguised; they may enter at any time previous to their delivery, and remain as long as they wish; they may carry their infants away with them, or send them to the foundling hospital through the medical attendant. The names and address of persons admitted into this division are not required; but each female must write her name and residence upon a billet which she seals, and on the back of which the physician inscribes the number of the room and bed she occupies. This ticket is then placed in a small locked-up cabinet beside her bed, and at her departure it is returned to her unopened; its object being, that in case of her death the institution may inform her friends, or be able to produce this testimony of her decease on the demand of her relations, or the police.

Females entering the first class departments of this division are not required to apply to the porter in the usual manner, but may, if they wish, go to the apartments of the attending accoucheur direct, who will conduct them to their appointed chamber; and with similar secrecy and precaution they may go out. The rooms of this class are likewise provided with cradles and every necessary comfort. Here the patient is permitted to bring her own servants and linen if she desire it; or she can be supplied from the stores of the hospital with every such requisite, &c. Without her own desire, no one except the doctor, not even a nurse or midwife, is allowed to enter her chamber; and in case of severe illness, she is at liberty to call in another physician along with the usual house-attendant. In the year 1840, twentytwo females were delivered in this part of the establishment.

Illegitimate births are exceedingly numerous throughout the Austrian dominions; but especially in Vienna, where not much short of the half is the proportion; and this, it would appear, countenanced and encouraged by the Government. But what end can there be imagined for a policy which involves such a social laxity and so many grievous evils? Mr. Wilde's answer is, "the Austrian state, whose political web extends not only into the paths of literature and science, but sends its far-stretching fibres into every domestic circle in the land, has an object in thus countenancing illegitimacy-it is that of "checking over-population; as those who are informed upon the subject of population well know it has the power to do, by decreasing the number of births and increasing the infantile mortality." Such, says our author, is the purport of the information he received on the subject, and such he believes is the true solution of the anomalous policy described. But whatever may be thought of the immorality or inexpediency of the doctrine, or of the enormity deliberately perpetrated by the Austrian state, the volume in which we have found these things detailed, furnishes such a clear and precise account of professional regulations as may very considerably assist our own ministry in framing their measures of medical reform.

Mr. Wilde has enlivened his book with sketches of the more distinguished practitioners of Vienna, and notices of their methods.

ART. IV.-George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, with Memoir and Notes. By J. H. JESSE. 2 Vols. Bentley.

SELWYN, it appears, was born in 1719, and was the son of a gentleman at Ludgershall, who returned to Parliament a member for that borough. George was therefore an aristocrat by birth and breeding. He was at Eton with Gray and Walpole; went to Oxford, but was expelled on account of some irregularity, yet not unfitting a youth of gaiety, according to the class notions of the day; entered the House of Commons; and enjoyed several places of a sinecure nature,

such as Clerk of the Irons in the Mint, Registrar of the Court of Chancery in Barbadoes, and Surveyor-general of the Crown lands.

Selwyn was a wit, a man of pleasure and polish, the associate and favourite of the leaders of fashion about town, and several of the celebrities in a better sense; a devoted frequenter of the gamingtable; of great good-nature, and not without his amiable points, such as a remarkable fondness for children. But his life and character exhibited some strange contradictions.

With brilliant wit, a quick perception of the ridiculous, and a thorough knowledge of the world and human nature, he united classical knowledge and a taste for the fine arts. To these qualities may be added others of a very contradictory nature. With a thorough enjoyment of the pleasures of society, an imperturbable good-humour, a kind heart, and a passionate fondness for children, he united a morbid interest in the details of human suffering, and, more especially, a taste for witnessing criminal executions. Not only was he a constant frequenter of such scenes of horror, but all the details of crime, the private history of the criminal, his demeanour at his trial, in the dungeon, and on the scaffold, and the state of his feelings in the hour of death and degradation, were to Selwyn matters of the deepest and most extraordinary interest. Even the most frightful particulars relating to suicide and murder; the investigation of the disfigured corpse, the sight of an acquaintance lying in his shroud, seem to have afforded him a painful and unaccountable pleasure. When the first Lord Holland was on his death-bed, he was told that Selwyn, who had long lived on terms of the closest intimacy with him, had called to enquire after his health. "The next time Mr. Selwyn calls," he said, "show him up :-if I am alive I shall be delighted to see him, and if I am dead he will be glad to see me."

There are but very few features or passages in Selwyn's own life that can be regarded as worthy of recording; and it is almost solely as the correspondent of persons more or less celebrated, some of them being of notorious repute, that he is to be regarded,-as the recipient and careful custodier of whatever letters were addressed to him, even down to the most trifling notes and unimportant memoranda. This mass of documents forms the materials over which Mr. Jesse's editorial knowledge and judgment have presided; the business of arrangement in chronological order, of suppressing such passages as might give offence to the living, and of inserting those notes and brief biographical particulars deemed necessary in the way of information and illustration for the benefit of the general reader, being the extent of his undertaking.

Perhaps the most remarkable particulars in Selwyn's life are those of which we are immediately to take notice; and even these require to be combined with certain facts to which reference has already been made, before they can amount to what is deserving of remembrance even in the shape of anecdote. We have heard that he was passionately fond of children. Add to this the following state

ment: