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but are feebler. Hence the actions become at the same time disorderly, and depart in respect to their nature from the rule of health. From a merely heightened susceptibility of the glands of the urethra, we have only a gonorrhoea benigna :but, if the power be disordered by venereal poison, the glands secrete venereal poison instead of bland mucus. If the susceptibility of the liver be only increased, too much-but healthy-bile is secreted:-but, if its powers be disordered, we have an acrimonious, green, thick bile. When the animal composition is deeply injured, we approach towards the highest lesion, which is complete paralysis. In the greatest degree of injury, the animal faculties can no longer be supported:→→ they pass from one degree of paralysis to another, and at last to total annihilation; which state we call death.

On these distinctions are founded three genera of fever. 1. Synocha, or fever with exalted susceptibility and unimpaired power. It manifests itself by too hasty, but proportionally strong, actions in the feverish organ. 2. Typhus. In this the susceptibility is increased, but the power is diminished. The actions follow quickly, but without strength in proportion; and the transition to paralysis is easier. 3. Paralysis: in which the composition of animal substance is so far injured, that the faculties, both susceptibility and power, are reduced, and at last totally destroyed. The actions are here weak, slow, and at length fail altogether; first locally, and then generally.

Fever is not an absolutely general, but often a local disease; and as such it is not confined to any particular species of organ, but affects sometimes one, sometimes another. However, in all fevers, the nerves and blood-vessels which immediately belong to the feverish organ suffer at the same time. The reason is that the fever manifests itself in the feverish organ by an increased activity; and no actions of organs can take place without the co-operation of the nerves and blood-vessels,-those important systems which preside over all chemico-animal processes. In many fevers, indeed, the whole sanguineous and nervous systems suffer: but this is not essential, nor universal. Each organ is in some respect independent, has its peculiar form and structure, its peculiar susceptibility, and can therefore by itself be affected by fever. Common language in this matter can decide nothing. In a scientific doctrine of diseases, we must not adhere to vulgar terms, but describe and distribute diseases according to their essence. Similar diseases, occurring in different organs, must not on this account be parted in our arrangements. The most common character of fever is increased activity of the feverish organ, from preternaturally increased susceptibility. Disease from increased susceptibility in

the

the hepatic system, having for its effect an increased produc tion of bile; the same in the salivary glands, attended by salivation; or in the stomach, occasioning vomiting; are not essentially different from that disease of the blood-veffels which we commonly call fever. They have only their seat in different organs. They are therefore fevers; and while they exist, the rest of the body, even the vessels and nerves, (those excepted which belong to the diseased organ,) may be in a perfectly healthy state,

Neither has fever been fixed to certain organs. Physicians no where maintain that it is peculiar to this or that part; and supposing that they admitted of fever as applicable to certain organs only, they must exclude all affections of other organs;and what can the excluded organs be? Not the nerves: —for, besides nervous affections, we reckon the disorders of the vascular system particularly as fevers. Neither the vessels:― for we call those disorders fevers, on which certainly all the vascular system does not suffer. Whence should arise salivation, diarrhea, excessive secretion of mucus, nervous affections, cutaneous eruptions, which are reckoned among the varieties of fever? They are symptoms, it is said, not kinds of fever. Why, then, is a distinct species of fever established on the cutaneous eruption in small-pox? Symptoms are sensible characteristics and effects of fever, and therefore always depend on it. Phænomena which are self-dependent, and are the ground of a determinate set of symptoms (e. g. a peculiar state of a salivary gland occasioning a salivation,) cannot possibly be symptoms, but must be species of disorders. Lastly, local fevers, affecting part of the head, an arm, or an eye, have been observed;

and what are the disguised fevers (larvatae), which every physician acknowleges as fevers, but local complaints? They have their scat in single organs, in this or that nerve, in a branch of the vascular system, in this or that viscus. Yet they proceed as manifest fevers, pass into them, and the manifest pass again into the disguised.

On the modification of fever, according to the organs in which it occurs, depends its classification. A species of fever is a disorder essentially distinct from all others, and occasioning a set of necessary symptoms which occur in no other species. The species of fever depend on the modification of the genera by the peculiar organization of the parts which they affect. Hence, as many species are possible as there are organs capable of modifying genera. Nay, in an organ or system of organs, (according as the organ or system is com

* Is there any mistake here? If so, it does not lie with us. REV,

plicated,

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plicated, destined to different functions, and as this or that part suffers,) several species of fever may occur. The vessels of the lungs may be affected by pneumonia, and the glands by catarrh, at the same time. In determining species, only those marks which distinguish it from others must be given. These are sensible modifications of the peculiar actions of the several organs, by a disease of their living powers. If we accurately know from physiology the peculiar functions of each species of organ, it will in most cases be easy to refer the anomalous functions, and their defects, to the organ to which they belong. Delirium consists in morbid ideas. It therefore implies an affection of the brain, or of that organ which contributes to ideas. The genus or the character of the fever appears from the nature of the anomalous actions. We are to examine whether they are performed rapidly, with force or weakly, or whether the peculiar actions fail altogether. Phre nitic delirium is a sign of synocha; the muttering delirium, of typhus; and insensibility in apoplexy, of palsy of the brain.

The following example will serve to illustrate one of the points which may seem most obscure in the above statement. In the beginning of hectic fever, (says the author,) the patient does not imagine himself feverish. He eats with appetite, digests, and has secretions as in health; his senses are acute; his head is clear; and the muscles, nerves, and viscera perform their functions well. The blood-vessels only have fever. The disease in this case is called a simple fever.

To this long abstract, it would be necessary to add, in order to give a full view of the work, the author's arrangement. Every attentive reader will conclude, from the very comprehensive idea given of fever, that the species must be numerous; and in fact not less than 98 occur under synocha; and as many under typhus. Twenty-eight stand under paralysis.

Besides this classification, the present volume contains observations on the complication of fevers, their causes, their type, and their cure.

Stripped of their proofs, Dr. REIL's positions will, by many, on a slight view, be pronounced absurd; and we surely shall not pledge ourselves for his success in an attempt in which so many illustrious predecessors have failed. If he seems to have extended the bounds of fever too widely, we know not who has fixed them to the satisfaction of the scientific world. He is undoubtedly, as a practitioner, a person of nice observ ation; as a literary man, well-read; as a theorist, one of enlarged views; and a thinker for himself. Probably, on the Continent, he has no equal as a speculator on organized nature; certainly, no superior. The ideas which he has thrown

out,

out, and the researches in which he is engaged, promise to lead to a more intimate acquaintance with the action and composition of living animal substances.

The inquisitive part of the profession would find their account not only in the present essay, but in Dr. R.'s dissertations. on irritability (or rather susceptibility); " De Canesthesi; De Organo Anima; his "Clinical Observations;" his "Physiology;" and his "Anatomical Exercitations :" all not long since published, or now publishing, at Halle; and all having at least the merit of original ideas.

ART. XVI. Winke über Deutschlands alte und neue Staatsverfassung, i. e. Hints concerning the Old and New Constitution of Germany. 8vo. pp. 180. Germanien. 1798.

T E author of this work professes to be very visionary, though he fixes a steady eye on the real world. He begins by climbing, in a dream, an elevated cloudy plain, in which myriads of human shadows are thronging about the ghost of Arminius, and are listening with watchful gestures to the instructions of the patriotic Cheruscan. To what Bischoffswerder of Illuminism we are indebted for the citation of this daring spirit, we know not; and in what crypt of the free masons the imps of Faustus conveyed its lessons to the press, we forbear to suspect.

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On Rastadt, the second sight of our seer appears to have rested with almost trivial attention. Surely he does not suspect that, while ultimatums and conclusums were crawling like wood-worms through the rotten desks of office, an occult senate was discussing interests of a higher order! Was the hall of its assembly pervious to this hero-shade? Has an eternal blazon taken place? This spirit (and it is a spirit which some monarchs will think they have an interest to exorcise, and which has perhaps been laid fast for a time in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea) gives a dozen points of advice to the listening Germans. For various reasons, we shall express in the closest possible form the drift of the twelve ghostly harangues, I. Beware of an enthusiastic rage for revolution. II. Conclude a firm general German union. III. Swear to maintain the entirety (Mr. Burke first employed this word) of the German empire. IV. Swear to maintain the independence (selbstständigkeit) or autonomy of the German empire. V. If you choose a monarchic constitution, let it be a limited one: if a

Not so the author of Grundlinien zu einer deutschen Republik, Wien, 1797: he recommends a tripartite division.

republic,

republic, attend chiefly to probity in your representatives. VI. Divide the country into new shires. VII. Make your mother-tongue not only the national but the fashionable language of your country. VIII. Found your new constitution on the four main pillars of justice, freedom, equality, and morality. IX. Abolish standing armies and the system of conscription: keep a regular soldiery only for purposes of police, and trust to a national militia for the national defence. X. Reform your institutics of education, your penal code, your system of taxation, your vitious policies, &c. XI. Observe allegiance to the extant constitution, until it be publicly abolished. XII. Remember that the salvation of Germany is to be expected from no planet, nor even from the Northern Star; but only from the sun of pure reason-(a favourite phrase of Professor Kant).

Various low drolleries disgrace this production in the eye of taste.

ART. XVII. Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, &c. i. e. William Meister's Apprenticeship. A Romance. Edited by GOETHE. 4 Vols. 12mo. Berlin. 1795, 1796.

A

ROMANCE by the author of the Sorrows of Werter, involving some of the most interesting questions in English literature, early engaged our attention; and, had not a disappointment in our foreign correspondence intervened, it would Tong since have been introduced to public notice. Even at this period, however, we perceive no reason why we should pass over in silence so remarkable a production; and we are confident that our account, if wedo justice to the author, will afford satisfaction to the reader.

No characters can differ more widely than those of Meister and Werter: no narratives, more than those which recite their adventures. The best judges of style or manner would have been foiled in their conjectures concerning the author of the present production, had it been anonymous; and we could almost wish, for experiment sake, that it had occurred to GOETHE to enjoy his fame for a time incognito: but, as he had before essayed almost every form of dramatic composition, he has also now chosen to rival himself in another department. We have here little flow of sentiment, and scarcely any swell of passion. All is light, airy, and comic, but not ludicrous. In the latter part, indeed, the writer's imagination has taken a bolder scope, but without deep pathos.

* Or rather Sufferings. This at least would be a more literal version.

The

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