to forget that there is quite as much skill required in knowing when to do nothing, as to employ vigorous treatment when this is called for.

A propos, we remember an anecdote of a clever but sarcastic surgeon, which may deserve reporting. On one of his colleagues, who was rather a busy meddling sort of practitioner, remarking, in reference to a dangerous case in the hospital, that in his opinion such and such were the "indications of treatment" to be pursued, he very coolly observed that, in his opinion, "the only indication was death." The lesson suggested is a useful one: ne quid nimis.-Rev.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM, A FASHIONABLE INTERLUDE IN PARIS.

Our lively neighbours cannot live without their jest, whether this be in the form of a mere jeu-d'esprit, or of a spectacle of some sort or another. If there has been a great fire in Paris (destroying perhaps a vast deal of property, not to mention life), it is more than likely that the ladies dresses in the ensuing season will be of flame-coloured silk; and if cholera, or any other novel scourge, makes its appearance among them, we are sure to hear of the fashionable hats, bonnets, shawls, &c. being à la cholera, à la grippe, &c.

One of their favourite themes of sport in the present day seems to be Animal Magnetism. The following extract, from a very sensible article in a recent number of the French Medical Gazette, may probably amuse our readers.

"If this kind of charlatanism (the puffing of ignorant empirics) is disgusting in consequence of the serious injury to health that is often the result, there is another kind which, although less immediately hurtful to society, is now spreading upon a broader scale and is likely to be ultimately attended with still more serious mischief; we allude to Animal Magnetism. This doctrine, utterly rejected by the Academy, and abandoned, at least ostensibly, by the intelligent Savans who embraced it a few years ago, has now fallen into the hands of a set of the lowest empirics, who seem determined to turn it to the most profitable account. Several of these industriel rogues are in the habit of exhibiting in the saloons of Paris pretended somnambulists (of both sexes), who perform before the astonished spectators various mountebank tricks for the small sum of from 20 to 30 francs each performance! There is now scarcely a soirée un peu sortable, which has not its little somnambulic representation. And yet, in the name of all that is wonderful, these poor devils, whose address certainly is not a whit beyond the tricks of the most common juggler at a fair, are received into the most splendid drawingrooms of the metropolis, amidst the most polished society of Europe-(well done, Monsieur Français! your nationality is always amusing) —as marvellous and exceptional beings, whose words are received as the responses of an oracle, and whose acts are almost believed to be supernatural!

"We have been present at some of these mystifications, and we fairly confess that we knew not whether to wonder most at the unheard-of impudence of the performers, or the extraordinary credulity of the spectators. And strange to believe! this is going on in the nineteenth century, in the midst of all that is most enlightened in literature and science, without opposition or reclamation.

"Besides these public exhibitions, we have private ones, got up at so much an hour; and then there are occasionally medical consultations-to the disgrace of our profession too often sanctioned by medical men. In short, there is not a street in Paris that has not its somnambulist juggleries.

66

Religious fanaticism has been for some time past availing itself of animal magnetism, as an apt means to impose on the credulity of the ignorant; for it is not difficult to perceive in the pretended miracles-which after so many years of interruption, have lately began to make their re-appearance in different countries

in Europe the influence of a superstitious belief once more brought into fashion by the modern disciples of Mesmer. The Church, it is true, has condemned the practice of Animal Magnetism, but it should be remembered that it has never denied the truth of the somnambulic exhibitions. Hence it comes that, while many attribute the phenomena to the operation of some immaterial fluid or to some particular condition of the nervous system, others are convinced that they are the work of the Devil himself. It is this latter opinion that seems to be the one that is generally received. We cannot wonder at this, when we call to mind that the bulk of mankind have always had a mighty partiality for whatever savours of the preternatural and miraculous. Hence it comes that now-a-days not a few cases of catalepsy, extasis, hysteria, mental hallucination, &c. are put down to the agency of demoniac possession."—Gazette Medicale.

Remarks. It is rather curious to observe what has been going on in our own country about this mountebankery of science, and to notice the different views taken of it by the Clergy. While Mr. M'Neile, the well-known eloquent minister of Liverpool, has published a sermon "On the Satanic (no mincing word, certainly) Agency of Mesmerism," a pamphlet has recently appeared from the pen of a clerical brother, entitled "Mesmerism the Gift of God!"

Who shall decide, when doctors disagree?

REMARKS ON ITALIAN MEDICINE.

An intelligent French physician, M. Combes, has recently paid a visit to Italy, with the view of examining into the state of medical doctrine and practice in some of the leading schools of that interesting country. We have not yet seen the original work, but, meeting with a copious review of it in one of the Paris journals, we deemed it worth while to make the following extracts from it.

"Hippocrates has truly observed that 'in general whatever the soil of a country produces is conformable to the country itself.' This remark is quite as applicable to the inhabitants, as it is to the vegetable productions, of a country. The character and temperament of man are in no slight degree influenced by the medium in which he is born and developed; his bodily health, as well as the passions of his soul and the faculties of his mind, are all more or less under the control of the physical circumstances in which he is placed. If he is the king of nature, his sovereignty resembles that, not of an arbitrary or despotic, but of a constitutional, throne, hemmed in by charters and by parliaments; and the power that he wields is ever under the weight of legal restrictions. How little suffices to alter the character and the energies of human beings! A few additional degrees of temperature, the exposure or non-exposure to a certain wind, the nature of the soil on which they live-these, not to mention many other circumstances, are found to modify not only the character and manners of a people, but even the vigour and the power of their intellect. You aspire to the glories of science, and the atmosphere which you breathe condemns you to become an artist; your mind dreams on discoveries of practical philosophy, and pants to tread the path of calm observation, and you find that, in spite of all your wishes, your imagination cannot resist the allurements of nature around you, but plunges into the fairy domains of ideality and romance."

"Under whatever clime human beings come into this world, they all bring with them at birth the same constitution of moral development; the same faculties lie dormant in the souls of all. These indeed are unequal from the first in different persons, in consequence of certain hereditary elements which stamp a peculiarity on each nation, each family, and each individual; and this inequality No. LXXVIII.

K K

will be more and more strongly marked according to the influences of climate and of early education. This is the reason why nations, although possessing most of the attributes of intellectual greatness, are nevertheless distinguished from each other by the special development of one faculty in a predominant degree. In all ages have the Greeks been pre-eminent for the fervour of their imagination, and the inhabitants of Britain for their cold and prudential reason.

Nations, like individuals, have therefore their characteristic temperaments or idiosyncrasies of constitution. Now the temperament of Italy is its ideality; its very existence is eminently artistic. Living in a region clothed with light (vestitos lumine colles), bathed in a warm and balsamic air, and breathing an atmosphere of romantic associations, little is the wonder that its inhabitants are so distinguished from almost every other people for the richness and grace of their sensual conceptions. Every thing in nature around them leads the mind to indulge in images of softness and beauty, and to withdraw it from abstruse and elaborate studies. Now what is the result of this tendency in reference to scientific pursuits? In schools, where pupils and masters alike have all more of the poetic temperament than they are themselves aware of, the character of the instruction will certainly be more or less dogmatic; and why?-because implicit faith is a positive besoin of such a mental organisation. Such a state of mind naturally leads on to a taste for generalizing on all subjects, and this very tendency is promoted by the copious richness of their sonorous language. Thus it is that the systematic conceptions of the Italians, proceeding from deep conviction, lead to exaggerated applications in theorising-and often too to an inordinate rashness in practice.

"The characteristic features of French medicine in the present day are a sort of disrelish for all systems, and a taste for the elaborate investigation of every problem of enquiry. Hence the practice of rigorous and oft-repeated observation, the numerous experiments, and the constant recourse to the aids of the scalpel, the test-tube and the microscope. Indicative of the same thing is the subdivision of science into a number of different branches. Each of these is pursued with indefatigable zeal by its different votaries.

It is scarcely necessary to allude to the characteristics of German medicine: the same laborious curiosity and indefatigable research, the same fondness for mystical speculation, the love of the marvellous and extravagant in physics as well as in metaphysics-these long have been, and still are, the prominent features of the German school."

In Italy at present (according to the observations of M. Combes) there are very few men, who apply themselves with diligence to the patient investigation of details upon any particular subject of enquiry. Most of the physicians have adopted certain general principles of medical doctrine; and on these they base their practice. Hence it is that almost all their treatises assume the synthetic form, and that, even in their works of elementary instruction, the exposition and description of details are too often sacrificed to the abstract generalities of an ingenious dogmatism.

But let it not be forgotten that we are talking of a country which has produced a Spallanzani, a Morgagni, a Scarpa, &c. and can still boast of Bellingeri, not to mention other distinguished names of medical literature. Yet, in spite of these eminent exceptions, it cannot be denied that many of the branches of professional knowledge have made but little progress, for very many years, on the other side of the Alps.

Physiology has retained pretty generally a purely dynamic character; the classical work of Medici does not even mention a vast number of well-established facts, and the same remark holds true of the lectures of Professor Martini at Turin. If such be the state of Physiology, or that branch of medical science that treats of the functions of the body in a state of health, we cannot be surprised that those of Pathology and of clinical medicine are very faulty and defective in many respects.

"In some districts of Italy, and especially at Naples and Modena, Hippocratism is altogether prevalent. In the latter city, indeed, the Faculty of Medicine may be considered as an association less for instruction in modern medicine than for perpetuating the doctrines of the Coan sage. The orthodoxy of the school is based upon them; everything is redolent of antiquity; the students are taught to regard the Aphorisms as the oracles of medical truth; when they aspire to the doctorate, they are called upon to expound and illustrate one or more of these pithy sayings; and it is with their hands, laid upon the works of the old Greek, that they take the oath upon the day of their inauguration.

"While the doctrines of the Hippocratic Medicine, more or less liberally interpreted, are almost universally received through the whole of the South of Italy, the northern half of the Peninsula has been long agitated by the disputed tenets of Contra-stimulism. Turin, Pavia, and especially Milan, are the head-quarters of this school. Rasori its founder started, it is well known, as a disciple of the Brunonian doctrines, and was the translator of the Scotch physician's work. All the phenomena of disease he strove to reduce to one simple morbid action, viz. excessive or deficient stimulation; and, like every other advocate of an exclusive system of pathology, he fell into the most egregious blunders, which proved to be injurious alike to sound theory and to safe practice. All diseases he considered to be systemic or general; and local inflammations therefore be looked upon as mere complications or accidental phenomena-the very reverse of the Broussaian creed. Professor Tommasini of Parma adopted a sort of intermediate doctrine between these conflicting systems. Assenting to the general principle of his fellow-countryman Rasori, he was too sagacious not to observe that local irritation, when extensive or long continued, is apt to give rise to constitutional diseases. Let us not deprive this distinguished physician of his due; it is right to acknowledge that he clearly enunciated the importance of local affections, as the cause of many diseases, before Broussais had published a line upon the subject."

"One of the most eminent physicians of Italy in the present day is M. Buffalini of Florence. His clinical lectures draw a large concourse of students, and his fame nearly equals that of his distinguished rival of Parma, Tommasini. He is generally regarded as 'un medecin organicien;' and yet his lectures and practice savour strongly of the Essentialist school. In commenting upon any case of fever, he pays minute attention to every appreciable alteration like of the fluids and of the solids, and he does not hesitate to acknowledge openly that the changes observable, either in one or in the other, are by no means uniformly in accordance with the severity of the constitutional affection, or can be considered as the proper causes of it. In many respects he is a decided Humoralist; but, while leaning strongly to the opinion that most fevers are attributable to certain changes in the circulating fluid, he on the whole does not trouble himself much with prying into the nature of morbid individualities, but contents himself with scrutinising their exciting causes, the various symptoms which they exhibit, and with devising the means best fitted for their relief. Every one, who has had an opportunity of witnessing his practice, speaks in high terms of it: avoiding the pernicious errors of Contra-stimulism, (which he has contributed in no small degree to throw into discredit,) he shews great discretion and tact in the use of his remedies. He has published an able work entitled 'Des fondemens de la Pathologie Analytique.'

"Italy is far behind France in many of the departments of medical science, and certainly in none more so than in Chemistry. There are no good laboratories for the preparation of medicines, in almost any part of the country; and hence little or no progress has been made in Toxicology, although the writings of M. Orfila have been long highly appreciated. What will probably surprise

most travellers, as much as anything, is to find that no correct analysis of the numerous mineral waters of Italy has been made by any native physician.

"Italy possesses more journals of medicine and pharmacy than France does; (we certainly were not prepared for this announcement;) but the division of the country into so many separate states places a great bar to their diffusion and general usefulness. The medical press suffers much from the consequences of the general political organism of the country; it has not a few obstacles to overcome, and a good many dangers to avoid. Thus, for example, when Homœopathy first made its appearance at Milan, under the patronage of the Austrian government, the subject, it was soon found, could not be discussed in all its bearings with perfect freedom. The whole business of journalism is fettered and cramped by restrictions and vexatious annoyances. Hence it is that scarcely any of the periodicals bears that stamp of originality and freedom of opinion, which constitute the main utility of such publications; and that their chief contents are mere compilations from the French, English, and German journals. As long as such a state of things lasts, we cannot look for that energy and devotedness in the cause of professional advancement which we find in the writers of France, Germany, and Great Britain. Surely medical science may fairly be regarded as a free and open field for unlimited boldness of speech and enquiry; but, alas! it has always been found that tyranny is never satisfied until it has brought everything under its iron yoke."-Gazette Medicale.

STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN FRANCE; INFLUENCE OF CIVILISATION. The following letter was read by M. Briere de Boismont at a recent sitting of the Royal Academy.

"Five years ago, I had the honour of reading a paper before this learned assembly upon the influence of Civilisation on the production of Insanity, and I then endeavoured to shew, by reference to numerous tables, that the frequency of this most melancholy affliction increases proportionately with the advances which a nation makes in social and mental attainments. Whatever opinion may be formed on this subject, no one can dispute the fact that moral causes give rise to alienation of mind more frequently than those of a purely physical or bodily nature. In 1807, Pinel distinctly enounced the truth of this position. Out of 683 cases, which had occurred within his own obervation, as many as 464 were clearly attributable to moral causes. Esquirol too has added his valuable testimony to the same effect; for out of 274 cases, which he has reported, 167 were traceable to the influence of psychical disturbance. According to the recent very elaborate researches of M. Parchappe, the relative number of cases arising from mental and from bodily causes is in the ratio of 63 to 37-the first being therefore nearly double the second.

"If then the influence of the one cause be so much greater and so much more generally felt than that of the other, we cannot be surprised to find that the frequency of insanity should increase with the advances of civilisation, more especially in those countries where the mind is more worked and excited than elsewhere.

"It is exceedingly difficult to obtain exact reports of the number of the insane in different districts of France. Although Government has expressly ordered that each department should have its separate institution, this is still but very imperfectly carried out in various parts of the country.

"M. Guislain, whose excellent works on mental disorders are universally appreciated, has stated, in his official report published by order of the Belgian Government, that the number of the insane in that country (as far as can be ascertained) is 5105, out of a population of 4,165,953 Inhabitants; but he adds