1814.] Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. Dr. ARMSTRONG, of Sunderland, has nearly ready for publication, Facts and Observations relative to the Puerperal Fever, in one volume, octavo. A funeral oration is printing on GENE RAL MOREAU, on the model of the ora tions of Bossuet, Massillon, &c. contain ing an animated biographical sketch of his public and private life. A History of the Hundred of Edisbury in Cheshire, by GEORGE ORMEROD, Esq. M.A. F.S.A. of Charlton, near Chester, is in considerable forwardness, and may probably be followed by the other hund. reds, from the pen of the same gentleman. The pedigrees of the extinct and existing County families are about forty; and among the principal subjects of the hundred are the castle of Beaston, and the sites of those of Frodsham and Northwich, the Seven Cowes, and other tumuli on the forest of Delamere, the camps of Edisbury and Kelsborough, Ince Grange, Busbury College, and the Abbey of Vale Royale. Mr. RYLANCE is completing his English and Spanish Vocabulary lately published, with some rules for the pronunciation of the English language. The same gentle. man also intends to prepare a Sequel to the Imperial and County Annual Register of 1810, for which he wrote the political History of Europe. Early in March will be published, in two volumes, 12mo. an historical Romance, called Love and War; by ALEXANDER STIVEN. Mr. BRITTON'S History and Description of Salisbury Cathedral, will be produced in five numbers, on April 1, June 1, August 1, October 1, and December 1. Each number will contain six engravings; and a few copies will be printed with proofs and etchings, and a very small number in folio, to class with Dugdale's Monasticon. The architectural drawings are by F. MACKENZIE, and the plates by Messrs. LE KEUS. Some members of the University of Oxford, have announced the British Biography of the last century. The field is ample, and the stores of information so copious, that it can scarcely fail, if executed with moderate intelligence, to be one of the most interesting books in the language. A plan is on foot to transplant into Britain, the superior oak of Poland; the Swirk, a superior species of fir; the white ash; and the Polish maple; all trees of great worth, for ship and house building, and of singular beauty as picturesque objects. It is worthy of remark, that in MONTHLY MAG, No. 251, 57 that country it is usual to plant trees in straight lines, in the direction of the prevailing winds, by which means they protect one another, and allow the wind to pass freely in the intervening spaces. A junction has been formed of Nicholson's Philosophical Journal and Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine; the latter work will in future be conducted by Messrs. NICHOLSON and TILLOCH. Mr. S. BANKS, of the R. C. S. will speedily publish, a Treatise on Diseases of the Liver and Disorders of the Diges tive Functions; including admonitory Suggestions to Persons arriving from Warm Climates." In the University press, Cambridge, are in preparation, Morelli Thesaurus Græce Poesews; sive Lexicon, GrecoProsodiacum, curâ MALTBY, 2 vol. royal quarto;-and. Dawes Miscellanea Critica, 8vo. curâ KIDD, editor of Opuscula Ruhnkeniana. Mr. KIDD is also preparing some Cri ticisms, Tracts, &c. by the late Profes sor Porson, to be printed at the Cambridge press. An edition is printing at Oxford of Livii Historia, 4 vol. 8vo. under the direction of a gentleman of eminence in the University, from the text of Drakenborch; and it will contain the various readings, and the whole of the Notes both of the 4to. and 12mo. editions of Crevier. There is at this time in forwardness, in the University press, Edinburgh, Novum Lexicon, Græco-Latinum, in Novum Testamentum, congessit et variis Ohservationibus Philologicis illustravit Jon. FREIDER SCHLEUSNER; to form two thick volumes in 8vo. It has been con◄ ducted by the Rev. James Smith, D.D. Mr. John Strauchon, and Mr. Adam Dickinson, and the principal improve ments will be a translation of the German passages, rectifying a number of mis-quotations in the original, and some observations by the Editors. Mr. T. BOOSEY has just imported, Adelungs Mithridates oder Algemeine Sprachender, as a specimen of the Lord's Prayer in 500 Languages, in three thick volumes, 8vo.; and also a considerable number of Russian books, among which we observe translations of the Vicar of Wakefield, Tom Jones, Don Quixote, and the Devil on Two Sticks. Mr. G. DAVIES, of Lizard-street, is about to publish a Key to Mr. Bonnycastle's Plane and Spherical Trigonometry. A Bible and School Commission has I been been instituted at the Cape of Good Hope. New editions are preparing for publication of Mr. Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language; with considerable additions from the Author's MSS.; and of Mr. Wharton's History of Kiddington, with Additions. A volume under the title of Sermonets, with Anecdotes, is announced, by Miss HAWKINS and Mr. IIENRY HAWKINS. A Poem in six Cantos is printing, under the title of The Paradise of Coquets. The Rev. 1. COBBIN has in the press, Plain Reasons for Infant Baptism; particularly designed for Christian parents, and candidates for adult baptism. A Practical Essay on the Diseases of the Vessels and Glands of the Absorbent System; with an Appendix, containing Surgical Cases and Remarks; by WILLIAM GOODLAD, Surgeon, Bury, is in the press. The Rev. JOHN MALHAM, Vicar of Helton, in Dorset, has completed four parts of his History of England. This work will consist of 152 numbers, or 11 parts; and will contain whole-length portraits of the British monarchs, with their coats of arms, the great seals of England, and the British coins, and a variety of other engravings illustrative of English history. It is to be comprised in one large folio volume. Mr. WILLIAM JAQUES has now in the press, a Brief Memoir of the Life and Writings (with Extracts from the Letters) of Christlieb Von Exter, son of Dr. Von Exter, physician to his Prussian Majesty, who died at the early age of ten years and four months. Mr. MAC-HENRY, author of an improved Spanish Grammar, has in the press, a volume of Exercises on the Etymology, Syntax, Idioms, and Synonyms, of the Spanish Language. FRANCE. Strabo has lately been translated from the Greek into French, at the command of the Emperor Napoleon, by a triumvirate of French sçavans, M. de la PORTE du THEIL, M. GOSSELLIN, and M. CoRAY, the last of whom is a native of Smyrna. The translation was exe cuted by the first and last of the abovementioned scholars; and the geographi cal notes were written principally by M, Gossellin. In the accomplishment of their undertaking, the translators have enjoyed the incalculable advantage of a free access to the treasures of the Imperial Library, in which M. de la Porte du Theil is one of the keepers of MSS. Accordingly we have many various readings and improvements of the text produced from manuscripts. It has been long known and regretted, that the Ninth Book of Strabo, which contained a description of a great part of Greece, exists only in a very mutilated state. It was natural to suppose that the lacuna, which are very numerous, proceeded from the defective condition of some one ancient MS. from which all the more recent transcripts were made. By singular good fortune, M. Dutheil has discovered this very archetype, which is the MS. No. 1397, of the Imperial Library at Paris, of which the leaves containing the ninth book are eaten away by moisture or the moths. This MS. he says, is demonstratively older than the twelfth century; all other MSS. which had previously been collated, are more modern; all were manifestly copied from this, and that too in its mutilated state. It turns out, moreover, that instead of fifty lacu ne in this book, the number specified in the editions, there are at least two thousand, great and small; but of these, nineteen twentieths have been restored, from conjecture, by the writers of the various transcripts, by the help of Stephanus Byzantinus, the Epitome of Strabo, the extracts of Gemistus Pletho, &c. M. Dutheil has therefore very judiciously prefixed to his translation of the ninth book, an exact copy of the original text, as it stands in the MS. 1397. SIR HUMPHREY DAVY, who is at Paris, has been chosen Corresponding Member of the 1st class of the Institute, in the room of Mr. Kirwan, by 47 votes out of 48.-The Lady of Sir R. WEBBE has just landed in England from Paris, and she states that that city was perfectly tranquil; that the Emperor is received with the usual respect on his frequent appearances in public; and that on her route to the coast, she saw great numbers of conscripts marching with cheerfulness to their respective head-quarters. This respectable statement merits our notice, merely because the flames of war continue to be fed by unauthenticated counter-assertions, printed in certain stock-jobbing newspapers, to aid time bargains and gambling policies. An edition of Herodotus, Gr. et Lat. is in the press at Strasburgh, with all the Notes of Wesseling, Gale, and Gronovius, also a Collation from ancient MSS. to be edited by J. SCHWEIGHAEUSER, upon the plan of the Bipont, editions of the Greek Classics, forming 8 volumes, octavo, PROCEEDINGS 1814.] [ 39 ] PROCEEDINGS OF PUBLIC SOCIETIES. THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, LONDON. T now twenty-eight years since this liver, stomach, and bowels, will be found Illustrious body tiede any communis upon these defects, there is another ope cation to the world, and in consequence much expectation was excited by the anBouncement of a volume of their Transactions. We must refer our readers to the work itself, or to the able and full view of it in the Medical and Physical Journal, for an account of the papers purely medical; we shall however introduce the substance of several papers of general interest, and certainly the most valuable in the volume. Of Headachs, which arise from a defective Action of the digestive Organs; by Pelham Warren, M. D. F.R.S.The symptoms of these headachs vary very much in different individuals, but in all cases some of the following circumstances are present. In general, restlessness precodes the attack, which is followed by uneasiness of the head, and want of the usual distinctness of ideas, oppression of spirits, disinclination, and sometimes incapacity for mental exertion, chillness of the body, coldness and dampness of the hands and feet. Next succeeds pain or dull aching of the head, sometimes of the forehead only, at others affecting the crown of the head and posterior part of it, attended with a sensation of coldness and tightness of the scalp, slight giddi ness, weight, pain, distension, and stiff ness of the eyeballs. In some cases, as these symptoms increase, they are accompanied by tingling and numbness of the fingers and hand, The tongue, in this disorder, is usually covered with a yellowish white fur, and is often very considerably coated with it. The pulse is of the natural frequency, but languid. Nausea is often present, but seldom in so great a degree as to produce vomiting. There is usually flatulency, and a sensation of dryness and inactivity of the bowels. The appetite is seldom impaired, even during the attacks of pain: it is, on the contrary, often preternatural ly increased, especially for those sorts of food which are apt to disagree with the stomach. If these headachs be allowed to pursue their natural course they generally terminate in a few hours; but when they have become habitual, they are often protracted through one, two, or more days. Such are the general symptoms; and when these prevail, the functions of the cies of them which seems to arise solely These symptoms are attended with an When headach is caused by chronic disease of the bones of the skull, it is distinguished by the constancy of the pain; which is confined to one spot, whence violent shootings proceed to some fixed point. The nervous headach is distinguished by the absence of constitutional disorder, and by the smallness of the space on the surface of the head which the pain occupies. The disorder which I have described is not peculiar to any age or sex; but it prevails most with young and middle-aged persons, who are of anxious minds, of a relaxed frame of body, and accustomed to indolent or sedentary habits, - This structure of constitution and mode of life are unfavourable to the perfect execution of the digestive functions. The stomach in consequence becomes unequal to its office, the secretion and passage of the bile are slow, irregular, and imperfect, the bowels become costive, the circulation of the blood languid, and the nervous system is rendered too susceptible. To these errors of digestion both forms of headach may be traced, and upon a short review of some of the immediate consequences of this state of the digestive functions, it will appear that headachs of the second form may with great probability be attributed to a fault in the 12 stomach, stomach, and those of the first description to a defective action of the upper bowels. From the intimate connexion which exists between the nerves of the stomach and the brain, any casual derangement of the digestive process commonly communicates its influence to the head. But when an unhealthy disposition of the digestive organs has taken place and become established, impressions made upon the stomach are sometimes instantaneously transmitted to the brain, and in general with great rapidity. Under such circumstances, the presence of acid in the stomach, and the reception of certain kinds of food, are often within a short time followed by headach, attended with particular symptoms. Upon the whole, that form of headach which is attended more with confusion shan pain, and in which there is a temporary dimness of sight, appears to depend chiefly upon a defective action or secretion of the stomach; the other, which is the most prevalent form, more particularly upon inactivity of the upper bowels, from whatever cause it may be produced, and an imperfection of that part of the process of digestion in which the bile is concerned; but in the majority of instances the whole of the digestive functions appear to be more or less implicated. In the treatment of headachs of the first description the following practice should be adopted :-When a headach is forming, or already formed, a purgative ought immediately to be given; and that should be preferred which has been found to act most speedily upon the stomach and upper bowels of the individual who is the subject of the attack; and the dose of it should be repeated every half hour, or oftener, till some mitigation of the pain in the head and mistiness of the sight takes place, or a disposition to action is perceived in the upper bowels. It will be found, that as this disposition is increased, and the contents of the upper bowels are carried forward in the course of the intestinal canal, the affection of the head will be diminished; that the luminous objects floating before the eyes will disappear, and that no trace of the disorder will remain, except soreness and tightness of the scalp. The symptoms yield sometimes before an evacuation of the bowels has been procured, sometimes after a slight motion, and in almost every instance before the complete operation of the purgative. If acidity be present, magnesia is the best and most expeditious purgative. This combined with rhubarb; the saline purgatives dissolved in mint, peppermint, or any other cordial water; and in general those aperient medicines, which operate mildly and quickly, are to be preferred. When the stomach and bowels are cold and sluggish, the compound extract of coloquintida, or other compound purgative formula, combined with aromatic powders, will be found convenient. Upon the whole, it is not very material what purgative is made use of provided it act expeditiously. To prevent a recurrence of the disor der, attention must be paid to diet and regimen. In general butter, the fat of meat, pye-crust, bacon, and other greasy substances, dried and salted meats, nuts, acids, and those sorts of food which readily take on an acid fermentation, are to be avoided. The use of wine, and of other fermented liquors should be very much limited, and in some instances entirely discontinued. Air and regular exercise, particularly on horseback, are indispensable: early hours, and the moderate habits which they induce, should be encouraged; the direct rays of the sun, and the confined air of heated rooms ought to be avoided : the skin should be kept warm, and rather disposed to perspiration; the feet shonld be protected by warm clothing, and carefully preserved from moisture or wet. Headachs of the second description, or those which I have attributed chiefly to a disordered state of the stomach, re-, quire a less active treatment. In these cases the purgative should be just suffici ent to prevent the stomach from retain ing such portions of food as may escape the full action of digestion. For this purpose a few grains of rhubarb, two or three grains of the compound extract of coloquintida, a grain of Socotrine aloes, or any other convenient purgative, may be administered daily, either before dinner, or at any time when the indivi dual has notice from his own feelings that the inconvenience experienced in the stomach is, likely to proceed so far as to occasion headach. If tonic medicines be deemed necessary, they should be mixed with gentle aperients. Weak infusions of quassia, of camomile flowers, of Cascarilla bark, of gentian root, or the extracts of these bitters, in which form they are more grate ful to the stomach, combined with a pur gative, will be sufficient for this purpose. The stomach, in these cases, will rarely admit of the use of steel or zinc; but 112 many 22 1814.] Transactions of the College of Physicians. many instances will receive benefit from the use of the mineral acids. Spice, ei ther in the form of medicine, or mixed with the food, gum-ammoniac, sagapenum, small doses of assafoetida, myrrh, and other remedies which belong to this class, are the best stimulants. On the Climacteric Disease; by Sir H. Halford, bart. F.RS. &c.-The human constitution, in its progress to maturity, undergoes repeated changes, by which its energies are developed, and it reaches, at length, that degree of perfection, whatever it may be, of which the individual nature is capable. Other changes too, of an important kind, generally occur in the decline of life; and philosophers have amused themselves with calculating the period at which these must happen, from the successive alterations which the frame underwent in early youth; not taking into their account the influence which moral causes have in our progress through life, in disturbing the regularity of natural processes, nor considering that various accidents and habits of living more frequently determine the number of a man's years, than the strength of the stamina with which he was born. It will not be disputed, however, that the alteration of the condition of the system in age, is not so well marked as that which took place in the beginning of life; and it must be adinitted, that in some persons who have reached very great age, no such alteration has been manifested at the epochs which have been called climacteric. The period of the Occurrence of this change in men, in general, is so very irregular, that it may be occasionally remarked at any time between fifty and seventy-five years of age, and I will venture to question, whether it be not, in truth, a disease rather than a mere declension of strength and decay of the natural powers. To the argument, by which it is maintained that it is mere decay, it may be sufficient to answer, that men frequently rally from the languid and feeble condition of their system into which this change had thrown them, become to a certain degree themselves again, and live for years afterwards. But it appears to me to have the signs of a marked and particular disease, and I would describe it as a falling away of the flesh in the decline of life, without any obvious source of exhaustion, accompanied with a quicker pulse than natural, and an extraordinary alteration in the expression of the countenance. Sometimes the disorder comes on so 61 gradually and insensibly, that the patient is hardly aware of its commencement. He perceives that he is sooner tired than usual, and that he is thinner than he was; but yet he has nothing material to complain of. In process of time his appetite becomes seriously impaired: his nights are sleepless, or if he get sleep, he is not refreshed by it. His face becomes visibly extenuated, or perhaps acquires a bloated look. His tongue is white, and he suspects that he has fever. If he ask advice, his pulse is found quicker than it should be, and he acknowledges that he has felt pains occasionally in his head and chest; and that his legs are disposed to swell; yet there is no deficiency in the quantity of his urine, nor any other sensible failure in the action of the abdominal viscera, excepting that the bowels are more sluggish than they used to be. Sometimes the headach is accompanied with vertigo; and sometimes severe rheumatic pains, as the patient believes them to be, are felt in various parts of the body and in the limbs; but, on inquiry, these have not the ordinary seat, nor the common accompaniments of rheumatism, and seem rather to take the course of nerves than of the muscular fibres, In the latter stages of this disease, the stomach seems to lose all its powers; the frame becomes more and more emaciated; the cellular membrane, in the lower limbs, is laden with fluid; there is an insurmountable restlessness by day, and a total want of sleep at night; the mind grows torpid and indifferent to what formerly interested it; and the patient sinks at last, seeming rather to cease to live, than to die of a mortal distemper. Such is the ordinary course of this disorder in its most simple form, when it proves fatal. When the powers of the constitution are superior to the influence of the malady, the patient loses his symptoms gradually, recovers his rest and his appetite, and, to a certain degree, his muscular strength and flesh; but the energies of his frame are never again what they were before, nor does the countenance recover its former volume and expression. I should observe, that though this climacteric disease is sometimes equally remarkable in women as in men, yet most certainly I have not noticed it so frequently, nor so well characterised in females. Perhaps the severe affections of their system which often attend the bearing of children, or, what is more likely, the change which the female con stitution |