"It may be said of our profession, that, unlike most others, it has for its constant and sole object to confer benefit on others. The advocate, at one time, pleads for the guilty; and, at another, endeavours to convict the innocent. The soldier engages to go wherever he is sent, that he may destroy the lives of those from whom he never received an injury: but the physician and surgeon are engaged only in lessening the afflictions, and prolonging the existence, of their fellow-creatures." BRODIE. THE power possessed by man, in resisting extraordinary degrees of temperature, has always excited the astonishment of physiologists, and remains still unsatisfactorily accounted for. But, although this power may be exercised for a limited period of time without serious inconvenience to the frame, we are but too well aware of the slow and certain effects of a continued residence in hot climates. The diseases peculiar to these have been, until late years, but little studied; and the modes of treatment irregularly proposed. As more correct views of the physiology of man have been cultivated, medical practitioners have been enabled to direct their inquiries to greater advantage: hence the numerous works which have recently issued from the press upon bilious disorders, &c., the almost invariable attendants upon those whose destiny it has been to endure the effects of a tropical sun. It would not, perhaps, be possible to name any individual whose labours have more eminently contributed to promote this branch of medical inquiry, than the respected subject of the present Memoir. His researches upon a most extended scale have been conducted with an acuteness of observation, and a philosophical precision, which equally reflect upon him the highest honour; and the large work by which his name will descend to posterity, has received the due and unqualified approbation of the Board which regulates the affairs of the Hon. East India Company. This work, to which I shall presently direct the attention of the reader, was published at the expense of the Company, an honour to which its merits justly entitled it; the cost would have been too great for the purse of any private individual. JAMES ANNESLEY is descended from a noble family, and is the son of the Hon. Marcus Annesley, and born in the County Down, about the year 1780. His professional education has been derived from the schools of Dublin and London. In the former, he attended the lectures of Cleghorn, Boyton, Dickson, and Harvey, at Trinity College; and those of Hartigan, Lawless, Archer, and Wade, at the Royal College of Surgeons; in the latter, he received instruction from Baillie, Cruikshank, and Thynne. Through the interest of Sir Walter Farquhar, baronet, he received an appointment to India; and he consequently quitted England, and arrived at Madras, in December, 1800. Upon his arrival he was appointed to a corps at Trichinopoly, and joined the regiment in January, 1801; and, in the following month, was detached to join the field force in Southern India, under Major Macaulay, and was present during the whole of that campaign from March, at Panjalam Courchy, till November, 1801, at Kalicoile. The service was desperate, and afforded ample exercise for all the energies of the medical department. Mr. Annesley took his place with others of the profession; but many instances of remarkable personal exertion on his part might here be introduced. He served with a battalion of native Infantry, at various stations to the Southward, and in Wynaud Country, and Travancore, from 1802 to 1805, when he was obliged to return to England on sick certificate. He was absent two years, returning to India, in 1807, when he was appointed Garrison Surgeon of Masulipatam. Here his opportunities of studying the diseases of India were great, amongst Europeans and Natives; and he availed himself of those opportunities, by devoting his whole mind and attention to the causes and treatment of intertropical diseases. It may be remarked as an instance of extraordinary zeal in his profession, that, from that period to the present time, he has never treated a case, either in public hospitals or in private practice, without recording minutely the symptoms of the disease, the remedies employed, and the results of the application. His attention has always been particularly directed to the effects and the operation of medicines, with reference to particular symptoms; and, in the event of casualties, the post mortem appearances have been looked to, with reference both to the symptoms of disease, and the remedies used. A continued and zealous attention to these subjects enabled him, on most occasions, to state, with tolerable correctness, the appearances that might be |