first night three kinds of food were tasted each once, and on the second, four kinds were each tasted three times, making fifteen in all, it might have been expected that much more than one would have been correct; but such was not the fact, and even that one was imperfect, for when I tasted bread and butter, he only said, "tastes like bread," but immediately before had said of the same article, "don't like it." Again, water was tasted, in the experiments of the two nights, fourteen times, and as it was announced to be a drink, we might expect that the answer would be correct once or twice. It was, indeed, correct twice; but immediately after one of these answers, he said, on another tasting, "strong;" and in other experiments with water from the same hydrant, he said, "don't like it," "tastes salt.” In another experiment he said of it, "don't like it"—"sour"; in another, "wine." Of milk and a syrup of loaf sugar he said "good," "very good," which would seem to indicate, that he was impressed by what acted on my organs of taste, but I am inclined to put these answers down to chance, when I recollect that he said of a very strong solution of common salt, "taste nothing"-"water"; of a boiled egg that it was "bitter,” and of an intensely bitter infusion of Colomba root, “good”— "tastes sweet." 2. Some of his answers, as would be those of a person blindfolded, appeared to be brought out by the mode of interrogation. Thus when I had vinegar in my mouth, Mr. Burdsal, by accident (for he did not know), asked him if it was sour? and he answered "yes," but still did not give the name. Again, when I was eating cake, and asked him what fruit it was like, he answered "raisins." Again, when my eyes were partially closed, and nothing of a definite color acted on them, but I kept on asking what color I saw, he answered "pink." Again, in the experiments of the second night, when I tasted the same articles three successive times, changing my mode of interrogation each time, his answers changed likewise, so that in no case were they uniform. Now I think these variations in his replies can only be ascribed to variations in the mode of questioning. 3. His apparent sufferings under some of the inflictions on me, may be explained on the principle of coincidence. As soon as he was put to sleep, the second night, and left to himself, no one touching him, and the room in perfect silence, he commenced and maintained a series of muscular movements of his face, arms, legs, and body. These then may be regarded as phenomena running through all the experi ments, and sometimes coinciding with them in time, so as to seem a part of them. Thus when I had a heavy weight on my shoulders, and nothing was said to him about taste, the muscular movements which he exhibited might have occurred, if no such weight had been borne by me; and when a gentleman rested his weight on my great toe and stood silent, and he moved his foot, he might have done it, if I had not been acted on, seeing that such motions occurred spontaneously several times. These automatic muscular movements were, in fact, a kind of constant quantity, running through all the experiments, and by coincidence and contrariety, harmonising with some and proving discordant to others, and to be rejected from the results of the whole. 4. It is probable that some of his answers were modified by what he heard around him. That he did hear those who were not in connection with him the first night, seemed almost certain, from the fact that his contortions, writhings, and signs of pain, became more and more violent, the harder a gentleman rubbed his coat sleeve with sand paper, while my arm was rubbed with a piece of fur. But the second night it was demonstrated that he heard, for he answered several questions put by Dr. Warder, whom he believed to be in communication with him, when he was not. Thus I have pointed out four circumstances, by which we may explain the few correct replies obtained from him; and, I repeat the conclusion already stated, that he did not feel the impressions made on my system. But I go no further; I do not say that he has not felt those made on the systems of other persons; I do not say, that other mesmerised persons do not feel all that is felt by those placed in communication with them. I do not say, because Mr. S., under my experiments, could hear those not in connection with him, that he can do it at other times, or that other persons in mesmeric somnolency can hear what is spoken in their presence. I disclaim all intention of drawing conclusions relative to him at other times, or others at any time. D. THE COLLEGE OF PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS. We have just received the Minutes of the eleventh session of the Western Literary Institute and College of Professional Teachers, held in Cincinnati, the place of all the other meetings, in the month of October last. By these proceedings we learn, that the next meeting will be held in the city of Louisville, on Monday, the 15th day of August. INFLUENCE OF AUSCULTATION ON PRACTICAL MEDICINE. We hope our readers will not suffer the length of Dr. Pope's translation to deter them from reading it; it will richly repay them for an attentive perusal. At all events it will enable them to answer the question so frequently asked: what good has auscultation done? The whole essay, of which the present number contains about one-half, strikes us as being a learned and ingenious one. As an evidence of its merit, we may mention that the Bordeaux Medical Society not only awarded to the author, Dr. Peyraud, its prize, but, as a further mark of distinction, conferred upon him the title of Corresponding Member. We shall endeavor to publish the remainder in our next. Dr. Pope has recently returned from Paris, having spent two or three years in the assiduous observation of disease in the hospitals, and in attendance on the lectures of the distinguished men with whom that capital abounds. He has taken up his abode at St. Louis, where we learn he is rapidly advancing in public confidence. We spent part of our novitiate with Dr. P. and know him intimately. If a high and honorable ambition, joined to fine talents and an industry that knows no obstacles, can insure success, no man will meet with a greater measure than he. C. CORRECTION.-Dr. Monette has requested us to make correction of an error that crept into the MSS. of his last article on yellow fever, published in our preceding number, the entire edition of which had passed through the press before his letter was received. On page 407 (vol. 5, no. 6), instead of the first sentence of the third paragraph, substitute the two following: "5 Opelousas is a large town or city, beautifully spread over an extensive area, upon a dry, rolling prairie, and proverbial for health. The houses are not crowded, and the streets are spacious and cleanly, and destitute of all the causes which are said to generate yellow-fever miasm." THE WESTERN JOURNAL MEDICINE AND SURGERY. AUGUST, 1842. ART. I.-A History of the Improvements which Practical Medicine has derived from Auscultation; being the essay to which the Medical Society of Bordeaux awarded its prize in November, 1839. By G. PEYRAUD, Doctor of Medicine of the Faculty of Paris, Corresponding Member of the Bordeaux Medical Society. Quæ fundata sunt in natura, crescunt et perficiuntur; quæ vero in opinione, variantur, non augentur.-Baglivi. Translated from the French for the Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, by CHARLES A. POPE, M. D., of St. Louis, Lecturer on Anatomy and Surgery, Physician to the St. Louis Dispensary, &c., &c. (Concluded.) CHAPTER IV. OF DISEASES OF THE HEART. Thus far my province has been to state the real progress which the science of diagnosis owes exclusively to auscultation; I have shown that this admirable discovery has rendered it easy to acquire a knowledge of the diseases of the lungs and pleura, as it was formerly difficult. Here my office chan ges, and instead of an exclusive admiration of the results obtained, I shall be led to inquire whether positive results have been really established, and whether the pathology of the heart has gained any thing by auscultation. But before entering on the discussion of this question, which, I confess, may appear to many persons a true paradox, let us see where the science was, relative to diseases of the chest, when Laennec began to apply his new method of exploration to their study. Of all the discoveries which physiology has ever made, the most brilliant, beyond contradiction, and that which has exerted the most influence on pathology, is the discovery of the circulation of the blood. Besides the new light which it shed on one of the most important functions of the economy, it also proved that the ancients did not know and say every thing. The magic which surrounded the great name of Galen once destroyed, physicians became more bold, and no longer restricting themselves to the sterile and ungrateful task of commentators, entered the vast field of observation, where such rich harvests awaited them. Of all parts of pathology, the one which was necessarily to gain most by this scientific revolution, was that relating to diseases of the heart, which organ Harvey had just shown to be clothed with functions so impor tant, and up to his time unknown. Before this ever celebrated epoch in the fasti of the art, the study of these diseases had been completely neglected, and if some scattered observations are met with here and there in the authors anterior to the seventeenth century, it is only as rare, curious, and extraordinary facts that they are reported, and not at all with the view of their co-ordination to refer them to a theory. But when once Harvey had made known his beautiful discovery, in 1619, the animated discussion which arose on this question, led to important researches, all of which profited the pathology, of the heart, by throwing more and more light upon its structure, and the mechanism of its functions. From that time Lower, Ruysch, Vieussens, Leuwenhoeck, and Haller, multiplied these researches and experiments so as to leave scarcely any thing more to be discovered in the anatomy and physi |