As these lectures do not include the operations, we shall not at present extend our comparison beyond those diseases to which we have already directed attention.

TAGEBUCH EINER MEDININISCHEN REISE NACH ENGLAND, HOLLAND, UND BELGIEN VON Dr. G. Varrentrapp. Frankfurt, 1839.

JOURNAL OF A MEDICAL TOUR IN ENGLAND, &c.

WITHOUT preface we shall introduce our pleasant gossiping author to our readers, and allow him, as far as mere extracts will suffice, to tell his own tale. Like all his countrymen, he is often most perplexingly minute, and that too upon matters which at best are trifling, and without interest. But as he seems to have been quite delighted with all he saw and met with on our shores, we must act as the poet bids us do to the friend we have lost,

"Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then."

"On the 8th day of April, 1838, at the hour of noon, I left my old fathertown of Frankfurt, by the coach-Eilwagen, i. e. speed-waggon-for Mentz, in a cheerful and easy state of mind; my only regret being that I had not a companion with me, to whom I could speak, and unfold my thoughts, as they arose. For five years I had cherished an anxious wish to visit England, and become acquainted, by a personal interview, with its many wonderful institutions. This wish became stronger and stronger, when the period of my intended departure approached, as the red of the morning sky becomes deeper and deeper, when the rising sun approaches the horizon. I felt confident that the journey would not only renovate the health of my body, but that it would also make young again all the spirits and temper of my mind."

From Mentz Dr. V. started next morning before day-light, by the steamboat, for Cologne. The worthy doctor here gives us a minute description of the appearance of the morning sky, the cold frosty looks of his fellowtravellers, the bustle on board the vessel, the gradual rising of the sun, the passing of one or two steam-boats up the Rhine-which, in his usual pleasant garrulity he tells us, caused the appearance of double speed-and the ever varying aspect of each bank of the river: he all the while standing alone and absorbed in a reverie on the bows of the vessel !

Dr. Varrentrapp no sooner reached Cologne than he forthwith-for, like so many of his countrymen, he is quite an enthusiast-hurried to have a peep at its famous cathedral, and thence to the church of St. Peter, where the last work of Rubens, the Crucifixion of the aged Apostle, is to be seen. This celebrated picture had been taken to Paris to adorn the Louvre, during the Imperial dynasty; but it was returned after the peace to the church from which it had been stolen. From Cologne he proceeded to Nymwegen, which he reached in the evening, just in time to join some travellers at tea. "Here the smoking tea-urn, the round biscuits of excellent quality, and as

light as froth, and either buttered or in company with cheese, the pipes and tobacco, and the guests sitting with their hats on-all shewed that we had left Germany far behind us."*

The next town our gossipping author visited was Utrecht, where he tells us that he met with the "most beautiful and national specimen of a Hollander," in the person of his host, that he had yet seen. His round blooming face, dark twinkling eyes, his slightly arched nose, ample forehead, rotund figure, and grave but cheerful manners, seem quite to have captivated the Doctor's fancy.

"The dishes too," he adds, "were equally interesting, being truly national and climatic. Sago-soup with cinnamon and wine, comfrey† with nutmeg, and huge pieces of ginger."

At the Amsterdam Hospital he learned that Typhus is by no means of frequent occurrence in Holland; by far the most common class of fevers in the country being of the intermittent kind. Enlargements of the liver, and still more frequently of the spleen, are exceedingly common. Cases of genuine scurvy, too, are often to be seen in the wards.

Dr. Varrentrapp being, however, much more minute in his descriptions of the building, of the construction of the various apartments, of the beds, their curtains and so forth, than of the maladies of the inmates, we are unfortunately unable to say more of the diseases of the country, or of the character of its physicians.

One of the pieces of information that he gives us is, that the Syphilitic disease is of unusual inveteracy in many of the towns of Holland,-in consequence, he alleges, of the want of any compulsory regulations for the inspection and management of the Freuden-Mädchen, or filles-de-joie. So shocking, says he, is the remissness in this respect, that the physician has it not even in his power to prevent such patients from leaving the hospital before they are cured! In Leyden, things are still worse; for at the hospital there they will not even admit any patients affected with syphilis, regarding this disease as a punishment from God upon a vicious life!

"Is not such a custom," exclaims our author, "even worse, more barbarous than that which existed in Germany a century ago, of giving all the venereal patients a good cudgelling on their admission into and their discharge from the hospital!!"

From Amsterdam, Dr. V. journeyed to Haarlem, and thence to Leyden. The university of this latter place still maintains its high repute in Holland: there are usually from 150 to 180 medical pupils studying there. The Museum of Natural History is of surpassing excellence; it is especially rich in all the departments of osteology, human and comparative. The celebrated Professor Temminck is the conservator. The Hague was the last place he visited before he reached Rotterdam. We find the following medical memorandum of his visit to its Syphilitic Hospital: "The most common

It is a little curious that the Dutch have appropriated to themselves or rather, perhaps, that we English have given them the proper appellation of the Germans-Deutsch, Deutschland, &c.

Are we right in our translation of the word schwartzwurzel: the same term is applied to the scorzonera, and also to the briony.

method of treatment is the exhibition of Dzondi's solution of the corrosive sublimate. Here we saw, God be thanked (Gott sei Dank), a good many cases of the disease in its primary stage. The cause of this is no doubt the circumstance of Dr. Dingeman, the physician, having the power of inspecting all the brothels of the place, and of compelling every girl, whom he finds diseased, to go instanter into the hospital."

On the whole, Dr. Varrentrapp does not seem to have formed a very favourable opinion of the Dutch hospitals or physicians. "The former are usually small, confined, and inconvenient, although clean and tidy; and as to the latter, they may, indeed, be good practitioners, but it must be confessed that certainly their outward man' is any thing but prepossessing and professional like. With hat on head, a pen in his right hand, and a cigar almost invariably in his mouth, the Dutch doctor is to be seen, at a stated hour, moving rapidly across the wards of the hospitals, marking down on the card of each patient a prescription, but seldom troubling himself with writing any report of the symptoms." Dr. Varrentrapp is very serious in his remonstrances with his Dutch professional brethren on the indecorousness of smoking.

"A physician owes a certain respect to every patient, although he may be the meanest beggar or the greatest rogue: herein consists the beautiful difference between the physician and the lawyer. The scum of mankind come to us medical men, not as criminals who deserve to be punished, even although they may have brought their maladies upon themselves, but as supplicants seeking our aid; and if we can relieve them, they regard us as instruments in the hands of the Almighty. Now this respect must be utterly destroyed by seeing a physician with a cigar in his mouth. A patient may accustom himself to much; but he cannot fail to see that no interest, either scientific or human, no sympathy in his sufferings is felt by a man who is probably re-lighting a cigar, when feeling his pulse, or when looking at his tongue. I do not know whether this practice is ever followed when a physician visits a paying patient."

Whether the custom be the cause or the effect of the imperturbable gravity and love of ease of the Hollander we cannot say; but sure it is, Dr. Varrentrapp tells us, that the Dutch doctors of the present day seem to follow their forefathers-and no doubt the forefathers theirs before themin every respect alike in their mode of life, their mode of dress, and their mode of practice, without minding in the least the noisy changes of this reforming age. He is so enamoured of old habits, that he will admit of no deviation from them. Whatever has existed for a length of time, must be in his opinion right; and all suggestions of improvement are at once checked by the reply, that the present system is found to work admirably. For example, between four and 500 hospital patients are often entrusted to the care of a single physician and his assistant; and it is expected that be should inspect and prescribe for every one of these daily. Now, what is the result? No reports of any of the cases are drawn up; all that is done is the merely writing in a book a certain short prescription opposite to the name of the patient and the number of his bed."

It is a pity that our worthy author, in his zeal to excite a reforming spirit among his Dutch brethren, does not enter a little more into details respecting the medical practice which is pursued by them, and give his readers

some idea of their mode of treatment, especially if there be any peculiarity in it, in some class of diseases.

But, as we have already remarked, his attention seems to have been altogether taken up with the construction and arrangement of the buildings, the shape of the beds, the size of the wards, and so forth.

From the Hague he travelled to Delft-where be visited the tombs of Hugo Grotius and William of Orange, who was so inhumanly murdered— and thence to Rotterdam.

As usual, be details all the particulars of his journey-how, for example, the steamer, that brought him over, was obliged by stress of weather to put back to Helvoetsluys, where it anchored for the night. It was very unpleasant thus to spend hour after hour in a most tedious and useless manner, the vessel all the while round-about-tossed-a Hamiltonian translation-by the restless waves."

Next morning, however, it crossed the Channel, and the worthy doctor saw for the first time the shores of hospitable England. The voyage up the river interested him, as a matter of course; and most minutely does he describe his astonishment at the number of steam-vessels, small boats, and ships, the buildings on each side, the docks with their forests of masts, the Custom-house, &c. &c.

At length he reaches London, "the haupstadt of Europe, that mighty, miles-long central port of the whole world."

After encountering the annoyance of porters, watermen and coachmen, he at length reaches the George and Vulture Tavern at Shadwell, from which, however, he speedily makes a retreat, in consequence of the smoke and darkness of his rooms.* Forthwith he hires a cab, and, impatient of immediately seeing something of the great capital, drives along Leadenhall Street, Cheapside, Holborn, Oxford Street, down Regent Street, and back to the City by the Strand and Fleet Street. "The multitude of coaches, cabs, omnibuses, carts, horses, not to mention the overwhelming number of footpassengers moving in both directions along the trottoirs, is truly astonishing, nay almost frightful to a stranger, and can be compared only to an ant-bill in a state of commotion."

He alludes to the construction of the street cabs-with the driver's seat either above, or before, or behind, or at the side, but always distinct from the body of the vehicle-as very significant of the national character: "an Englishman is far too exclusive to allow a coachman to sit beside him." He then gives a minute description of the tax on tradesmen's carts, which were altogether foreign to him; but our readers will no doubt readily dispense with the particulars.

After the rapid view he thus took of some of the leading streets of the metropolis, our author went systematically to work, and examined all the chief buildings, institutions, manufactories and other lions visited by strangers. As a matter of course he visited Westminster and Henry VII.th's Chapel "with its marvellous treasure of gothic stone-work;" St. Paul's, from whose

We must not omit to mention that he afterwards found sehr comfortables(this word seems to be naturalised in almost every European language, now-adays,)-lodgings in Leicester Square.

No. LXV.

F

top the spectator is astonished with "un endliche colossale chaos" of buildings; the Tower, "with its little town within;" the Docks, "those enormous witnesses of the mighty enterprize-spirit of this metropolis of the world's trade;" the Tunnel; the Squares, "the keeping of which closed shews how much the Englander dislikes being intruded on ;" the Palaces; the Parks; the Theatres; the Post Office and its mail-coaches, "which few princely equipages on the Continent equal;" and the numerous Galleries of Painting, not to mention a host of other places.

The worthy doctor seems to have been charmed with the kind reception which he met with every where, and talks in most flattering terms of the inhabitants of "this mighty blooming noble island-land."

"Not only do we perceive at each step the results of individual energy, of a restless activity, of a clear and comprehensive sagacity of every one in his own sphere, of unobstructed and admirably regulated corporation-rights, and of an immoveably secured and a most intimately interwoven freedom; but we see also, on turning our attention to the private and domestic life of the people from that of their business and commerce, a not less beautiful and elevating feature in the former, than a rich, brilliant, and astonishing one in the latter!" "Every Englishman, to whom you may happen to be even accidentally introduced, will gladly assist you, to the best of his abilities, in attaining the objects of your journey, although he can seldom devote his time, at least during the day, to your service. It is unnecessary for me to attempt a description of the family manners of this people, the manner of their home enjoyments with their children and their friends, their dinners and suppers, and their comfortable close houses, as all this has been admirably done by Otto, in his Pictures of London."

We confess that we, as readers, should have been much better pleased with any remarks from so cheerful and so intelligent a traveller as Dr. Varrentrapp on our social and scientific institutions, than with the prosy architectural and statistical descriptions with which he has loaded his book. But it is of no use to complain; so let us continue to take him as we find him.

Nearly a hundred pages are occupied with a description of the numerous hospitals, asylums, and dispensaries; their number of beds, their funds and expenditure, the names of the medical officers, and so forth. First, he gives a most exact account of the University College and of King's College, their origin, success, present state, &c.; of the College of Physicians, "where, during the last two years, reform has been making great progress;" of the College of Surgeons, "in whose new building a great luxury prevails ;" and of the Hunterian Museum, "so admirably kept and so beautifully arranged by Mr. Clift and his son-in-law, Mr. Owen;" and lastly of the Society of Apothecaries.

The Hospitals next come under his review; but, as usual, our worthy author is more taken up with the buildings themselves, than with the patients within, or their medical attendants.

St. Bartholomew's is most minutely described in all its particulars, down to the shape of its windows, the size of the beds, the construction of its water-closets, and the duties and wages of its nurses. The names indeed of

* Again our author alludes to the separation-lust of our countrymen in excluding the public from the Zoological Gardens on Sunday.