Surinam and the American Inands, who have brought into Eusope with them, the melancholy debilitating consequences of it. That it is however a ftill more potent cause of it there, than rough cyder, or sour wine, is highly probable; and even a more powerful one than their moderate use of limes, lemons or oranges, could be. Since it is well known, that when the Dry Belly-achs were more popular and inveterate in those climates, than they have lately been, they drank much stronger and fweeter, and less acid punch, than they have been accustomed to fince their decrease. It is said, indeed, p. 69, . Those who have indulged themselves in too liberal a custom of punch-drinking, will find their nerves greatly affected by it, and fall into cholics and palfies :' and we are advised, p. 144, to strengthen the nerves with balsamic and nervous, though not spirituous, medicines. Now, upon the common physical axiom of omne nimium malum, of all excess being pernicious and insalutary, there is no doubt but the best compounded punch, or even the purest elemental water, may be too plentifully drank; but we may furely affirm, the stronger the punch is, the excess will be the more, and the fooner, unhealthy. Indeed the extraordinary fenfible perspiration in thofe climates, where the severelt degree of these nervous cholics are most frequent, inevitably requires, espeeially in persons who work, or stir much about, frequent replenishments of some cool refreshing draughts of light and thin, yet very temperately reviving Auids. And notwithstanding the ingenious Dr. Cheyne's laboured invective against this beverage, yet when it is made duly weak there, (suppose one fixth or leventh of good, and not too new rum) moderately acid, and not too heavy, or syruplike, with sugar, long experience has confirmed the wholesomness of a temperately liberal use of it, in the climates within the Tropics, where strong malt-liquors agree less, and they drink more wine diluted than unmixed. Their acids (where no particular indisposition nor constitution forbids them) are the natural correctors of the fiery spirit, as water is the diluter of it; and as the spirit, in a due proportion, is the corrector of their coldness and crudity: and in fact the grateful vegetable acids their climate abounds with, are the natural attemperants of their turgid copious bile, and concur, with their regular and pretty constant trade-winds, to make their zone inhabitable. We were formerly acquainted with an eminent phy. fician, who had refided some time in one or two of these islands, and vifited most of them; and who, whenever he took a dram, which was but seldom, fqueezed a little lime-juice into it. A near relation of his also assures us, that in an attack of the Dry Belly-ach, with the usual constipation, &i. he took, upon the authority of the former, while he had two middling, but ineffectual, purges in him, a small glass of fresh-Squeezed ripe lime

juice, which very speedily excited the operation of the purges,
and entirely removed the disease. For the weak and acid punch
then taking place of the sweet and strong that was generally
drank before, the number of Dry Belly-achs were sensibly'
diminished in the province they resided in; the excessive use
of the acid frequently exciting gripes indeed, with purging, but
never, to the best of their recollection, a Constipation or Dry
Belly-ach. Common experience indeed sufficiently attests, that
a dram to a person not accustomed to them; has a considerable
tendency to restrain the immoderate operation of a vomit, and
also of a purge; as the habit of them generally disposes the
drinker to an habitual costiveness. The acerb juice of the
roughest apples, of which cyder is commonly made, according
to Dr. Huxham, may differ materially from the ripe juices of
the lime, the lemon, and the sower orange in their native cli-
mate, which certainly afford a more generous acid, the first of
these being blended with a mildly aromatic flavour. Neverthe-
less there undoubtedly are some diseases; some particular confti-
tutions ; certain stages of life, and some seasons of the year in
the colder climates, in which even the use of these would be im-
proper. We had already observed, that the spirit was recipro-
cally a corrector of any excessive acidity, which undoubtedly
may be too much indulged in, and which was the case of the
gentleman mentioned, page 69; who taking very large quan-
iities of lemon-juice, to keep down the bile, became pale, languid,
cachectic, and frequently subject to cholical complaints, and
at length to paralytic ones. A proof of this excess, and of the
ellential diversity of different acids, occurs in the same page,
where it is affirmed, that one of our Authors' was a witness to
the inexpressible sufferings of a young woman, who, through
the mistake of her apothecary, took a draught acidulated with a
drachm.pf Spirit of vitriol, instead of lemon-juice.'

As to what Dr. Schomberg premises, of his having intended 'to give his translation the air of an original ;' if we suppose Dr. Ironchịn to have wrote the original in proper, elegant, classical Latin, which we presume was the case, we are really apprehensive, it has received but very moderate embellishment from his translators changing it into English. Not that we hence infer chis gentleman's ignorance of our language, though we muft fuppofe a less accurate intimacy with its true regimen and idiom. For instance,-- This will evince us of Riolanus his mistake,' p. 12, instead of convince. ( When the bile reaches to the spine of the bone, and affects the spinal marrow, the consequence of which is convulsions and a pally,' p. 15. By this we fuppose Dr. S. means, when the bile penetrates into, and indeed through the spinal bone (which it must do to affect the marrow)

Esc.

788

Baron de Sind's Preservative EleElary against
&c. Though we do not chuse to litigate this extraordinary cause
of convulsions, &c. we may venture to assert it an uncertain
one. « To the too free a use of wine,' p. 38, where we con-
ceive one of the particles the or a, to be redundant, and not ele-
gantly fo. • Three recovered of the family,' p. 72; which odd
transposition of the word recovered, reads, as if the family was the
name of some disease, as we might say—Three 'recovered of the
Pleurisy. The want of so before often may be a typographical
error (though not one of these are included in the errata) but its
insertion is indispensably necessary to the grammatical connection
and meaning of the passage. If our Translator prefers retro-
traction of the abdomen to retraction, we have no objection, since
the meaning is the very fame, and equally obvious; and neither
retractio nor retrotractio are classical Latin words, notwithstanding
the former is deducible from one. We are sensible, however, of
that love of liberty so inherent in the genius of our language,
as well as in the speakers of it; and which, under the direction
of proper heads, with good ears to them, has certainly added to
its copiousness, its force, and its elegance. But there is some
material error, either in the original, the translation, or the im-
preffion, p. 109, which renders the last fentence of that para-
graph unintelligible: and which we submit to Dr. S.'s emenda-
tion in the first possible re-edition of his Translation.

But to conclude, we imagine this compiled and translated
treatise, though reflecting no discredit upon the whole, either on
the learned Author or Translator, will not very materially add
to that medical reputation they may have formerly obtained from
their writings. Its principal merit seems to consist in present-
ing living physicians a fynopsis of what the deceased have wrote
on such nervous cholics; and in adding a little more upon it,
from the united experience of our indistinguishable Gemini.

K-k-k

1

A Description of the Virtues and Uses of a Preservative EleEtary

against the Glanders in Horses; invented and made by the Baron
de Sind, Firf Master of the Horse to his Electoral Highness of
Cologn; to which is added, the verbal Process of the Experiments
that was made at Popplesdorff near Bonn, by Order of the French
King ; with the several Attestations and Certificates thereof. 8vo.
Is. G. Woodfall.

TH

HIS title-page corresponds perfectly well to the contents

of this pamphlet. The experiments made of the virtues of this preservative horse-medicine, on fixteen found horses, who

had

had taken it, and were all put, together with two other found ones who had not taken it, into a stable with two glandered horses (in order to catch it from them, feeding and drinking out of the same vessels) very strongly attest its efficacy: the two who had not taken the Electary dying of the glanders, which was ery manifest on the diffection of their bodies. Two others

Tixatdan, who died of worms and their consequences, did not exhibit the least appearance of the Glanders upon diffection: and the remaining fourteen horses (who had even eaten of hay, which had been rubbed over the glandered horses noftrils) were, on the 25th of March 1763, (subsequent to January 1oth, when the experiment commenced) declared found by two sworn experienced farriers. Of all these facts and dissections there are formal and authentic proofs, figned by the court farriers and huntrman; by the register of the court of justice; and by the secretary of the Marquis of Baufset the French ambassador, who proposed to purchase the receipt for his Master. The licence to the court printer, for publishing the whole verbal process of all these experiments and their events, is signed by his Electoral Highness of Cologn, at Bonn, April 6, 1763. We are at liberty to suppose the noble German inventor to have digested and arranged the present authentic little tract. He says, in the course of it, the Electary is not dear, but does not specify the price.

In a country, producing such excellent horses as our own, and which we apprehend are sometimes an article of commerce, it should be hoped, that if humanity to thefe most valuable creatures did not operate fufficiently, yet our own interest might disposé us, as well as the French, to procure them the most effectual preservative from this mortal distemper ; which, the inventor of it also affirms, will cure those infected with the glanders, if their bowels are not already tainted, judge ing such incapable of an absolute cure. The pamphlet is not below the attention of the noblest lovers of a horse, (a quality from which the royal father of Alexander was named) and should be perused by every considerable proprietor and doctor of these generous animals. We cannot for our own parts avoid confidering this island's being termed the Hell of Horses, as a bitter reflection on a brave, a civilized, and, in other respects, a hu. mane people: and we compassionately wish, it were a less just one, than we fear it is. We never entertained the least doubt ourselves of the cruelty, and consequently of the guilt, of abusing these more deserving animals, as they may well be termed, in comparison with their abusers. But we thought it very consistent with the dignity of human nature, to hear some gentlemen express their abhorrence of a late flagitious horse-race to and

from Colchester *, by wishing the poor murdered cattle had fur: vived, and their tyrants had dislocated their own necks a little, in terrorem. Certainly a very clement despotic Prince might justly be commended, in making it capital for such persons ever after to enjoy the least benefit or diversion from that family of the creation, which they had so cruelly maltreated.

K-k-k Wickedly attempting to run a hundred miles at a stretch; about seventy of which the noble animals performed, when Death mercifully put an end to the experiment !

A Digest of the Laws of England. By the Right Honourable

Sir John Comyns, Knt. late Lord Chief Baron of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer. Vol. IId.

Folio. Il. IOS. bound. Knapton, &c.

N our Review of the first volume of this work, we observed

that, though it was liable to some objections, it nevertheless contained a great deal of curious and useful matter, and that it was, in some articles, more full and satisfactory than many of our voluminous abridgments. We are glad, as we proceed, to find farther reason for entertaining a good opinion of its utility. For notwithstanding the cases are, in general, very short, so as to give the work, as we observed before, the appearance of a Common Place Book, yet they are very accurately taken, and the heads under which they are collected, are digested in the most clear and methodical arrangement.

In the volume before us, the analysis is particularly well formed, and the matter is branched out into many new subdivisions, which do not occur in other Writers: the references likewise, as far as we have been able to examine them, are made with great care and correctness. This is a most essential part of a work of this nature; for, as the cases are so shortly stated, containing sometimes little more than the bare adjudication, the Reader who wants to extend his knowlege of the subject, would be greatly at a loss, if the references were not just and exact.

As dry matters of Law can afford little entertainment to our Readers in general, they will readily excuse our making an epitome of a work like this. It will be sufficient to give a view of our Author's method, for which purpose we shall select such extracts as are most generally interesting and intelligible. Of this kind, the first that occurs, is under the title Capacity.

CAPA