tical work, replete with practical principles, and founded upon a practical investigation."

To examine critically and logically the opinions here expressed is scarcely worth while. The judgment is vague and indiscriminating, and does not precisely distinguish the characteristic merits of the Treatise by Dr Cullen. But the opinions may be taken as the testimony of one who, as aiming at distinction in the same line of scientific and professional exertion, might be supposed to have acquired some title to express an opinion, though on the writings of a physician, who was in all respects much his superior. The opinion expressed on the propriety of studying the Treatise on Materia Medica along with the First Lines, with which we are at present concerned, is that which in all probability will be shared by all the most competent judges, who have studied the work with greatest attention. And it is not to be forgotten, that this idea it was, which, in some degree, though not derived from Dr Mason Good, induced Dr Thomson, in his edition of the First Lines, published in 1827, to introduce, from the Materia Medica, illustrative extracts wherever the subject seemed to demand this course, and thus put it in the power of the student to realize the plan proposed by Dr Good.

Soon after the publication of the Treatise on Materia Medica, Dr Cullen received from various eminent and learned persons, scientific and professional, letters expressing their sense of the value of the Treatise as a work of utility to the physician. Among these we find Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Charles

Blagden, Dr Lettsom, John Andrew Murray, the learned Professor of Botany at Gottingen,-all eager to express their opinion of the merits of the work. Such productions are in many instances to be viewed as the mere effusions of politeness and friendly partiality. But in the present case, the subsequent course of events, some of which I have attempted to trace, showed that these persons simply anticipated that verdict, which the experience of at least thirty or forty years has only tended to confirm.

It comes not within the plan of these observations to trace the progress of Therapeutics and Materia Medica to the present time. My purpose is accomplished when I show, or attempt to show, the influence of the teaching and writing of William Cullen upon the teaching and writing of the nineteenth century. It is not easy to say where this influence ceases to show its effects. We have seen that it is distinctly perceptible during at least the first third of the century; and it is scarcely possible to conceive that any well-prepared writer should attempt at present even to treat of Therapeutics and Pharmakology without having previously given a reasonable amount of attention to the facts and doctrines, the reasonings and deductions, contained in the work of Cullen. But it would lead to unprofitable detail and unseasonable prolixity, perhaps exaggeration, were we to extend our disquisitions to all the works that have appeared on these subjects to the present time.

During the

years in which Dr Cullen was occupied

in preparing the Treatise on Materia Medica for publication, not much occurred to diversify his life and require especial notice in these pages, beyond those events that have been already recorded. The only circumstances not hitherto mentioned were two examples of that high estimation in which the character of Dr Cullen was held as a scientific physician and an intelligent writer and teacher, and which, from the time at which they took place, could scarcely with propriety have been previously introduced. At Dublin there had been established, under the authority of the Medical Professors of Trinity College, a Society for the advancement of the Science and Art of Medicine in Ireland; and on the recommendation of these professors, who, it is said, had studied under Cullen, and held his name in much veneration, his name was, toward the close of 1787, enrolled among the list of honorary members of this Society. The intelligence of this proceeding was communicated in a letter of the 31st December 1787, from Dr James Cleghorn, the Professor of Anatomy, along with the official letter of the Secretary of the Society.*

Of a more elevated and select character was the next testimony that was given to the scientific reputation of Dr Cullen. Peter Camper, the industrious and well-informed anatomist, who had been Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at Amsterdam, and who still held the title of honorary Professor,

*This Dr James Cleghorn was the nephew of Dr George Cleghorn, the author of the instructive work on the Diseases of Minorca.

had breathed his last, at his house near Franeker, on the 7th day of April 1789, in consequence of an attack of pleurisy, at the age of fifty-seven years. The vacancy, which was thus occasioned in the Academy of Sciences at Goettingen, was speedily filled by electing Dr Cullen in the place of Camper. The announcement of this honour was communicated to him through the medium of Dr Girtanner, by Abraham G. Heyne, the learned editor of Homer, Pindar, and Virgil.

It appears, from some of the correspondence still extant, that about, or soon after the time at which the Treatise on Materia Medica was published, Dr Cullen was directing his mind to the question of publishing, as a fifth volume of the First Lines, a short view of the Diseases proper to Women and Children; understanding by this designation those Disorders which had not been very fully considered in the First Lines. A note from Charles Elliot the bookseller, dated 3d April 1789, shows that this gentleman had been considering the proposition, as he states, maturely, but seemed not perfectly willing to undertake the work on the terms proposed. Of this proposition no more is said. But while the mere proposition indicates the activity and energy of the mind of Cullen, it is not improbable that the members of his family, to whom the appearance of Dr Cullen must have at this time suggested some doubts as to the propriety of his undertaking any serious literary labour, had either directly dissuaded him from continuing his exertions, or at least had given him little encouragement to persevere in labours not

quite suited to his advanced period of life. It is indeed stated, in the volume of the Medical Commentaries for 1789, that Dr Cullen was proceeding with this fifth volume of the First Lines with his wonted zeal and activity. But this statement is manifestly one of those general effusions of politeness, indicating principally the good nature of the editor, and his high admiration of the talents and character of Dr Cullen, not founded on any exact knowledge of the actual facts, and certainly without that intimate acquaintance with the condition and physical and mental capabilities of the individual, which is accessible to those who are living under the same roof, and in frequent intercourse with him. Dr Cullen was now in his seventy-ninth year. His life had been one of incessant professional and literary labour and industry; and though he could in no just sense of the term be said to be unfortunate, yet he had encountered a considerable amount of those unfavourable, if not positively adverse, circumstances which tend to exert an injurious influence both upon the physical and the moral part of the human constitution; which impair mental energy, embitter life and shorten its duration.

It is certain that the conduct of Dr John Brown caused him a considerable amount of uneasiness and vexation; and though he never mentioned the name of that person but upon one occasion, yet several of his friends were aware of the deep, severe, and hurtful influence, which the proceedings of Brown had produced upon his mind and feelings. It was not in this instance the mere feeling or consciousness of