ill-disposing organ is so predominant that it can no longer be regulated by the will, then the individual is to be treated like one insane, removed from the great body of society, that he may not injure, or possibly infect it. This separation cannot always be effected by entire seclusion; he is dangerous to every one, and the life of one so useless and wretched may be of no worth at all. It may be necessary (to use a Mosaic phrase) to cut such a soul off from his people, not as a punishment, but for the reason that makes the surgeon amputate a useless and incurable limb. This doctrine, therefore, instead of leading courts of justice to be unwisely mild and gentle, should rather make them severe in their judgements, not indeed with a view to punish a fault that could have been avoided, but in order to prevent crimes in future, and form a conviction that there are no other means of individual reform, or general security. But of course the general application only of the doctrine is meant, and on no account a particular application to individuals. The magistrate has never any thing to do with the moral worth of the subject, his concern is only with his actions. He has no right to infer the probability of future violations of the law but from previous offences; and though he he should infer, from long continued and repeated acts, a strong physical impulse, he has no right to form such inference from an examination of the organs of his head; the less so, as there still prevails so much uncertainty in the forming of individual judgements. This applies also to judicial medicine*. The organology is not yet advanced far enough to furnish grounds for determining the greater or less culpability of the individual; and if it were, it would not materially affect the administration of justice, for it has been shewn that that strong natural impulse to commit a crime which might lessen his moral guilt, would at the same time render him still more an object of punishment, politically, in reference to the greater danger to the public from the influence of that natural impulse. Application * Medicina forensis. This is a topick in the administration of justice in Germany, unknown, at least as a distinct branch of study, to our English practitioners and lawyers. But it is considered of so much importance, that lectures are read upon it regularly in all the great universities. It comprehends all those subjects upon which medical men are in the habit of giving their testimony in courts of justice, of course all the symptoms by which poisoning, wilful murder, the birth of a bastard child, dead or alive, &c. are to be judged of. A great variety of matters are included in it.-E. Application to the practice of Medicine. Though I estimate the new discoveries of Dr. Gall highly, as enlarging our medical knowledge, I cannot yet convince myself of their utility in practice. The only cases in which they might be useful, are those of the diagnostic and prognostic symptoms in diseases of the mind. We might be often able to determine, with greater probability, the seat of the suffering mental power, and to judge of the probability of cure from the more strong or weak developement of the organ. But in the cure of diseases, there seems to me to be no new and essential remedy afforded, for the knowledge we already have concerning the functions of the brain and nerves, has taught us the use of topical bleeding, the pouring of cold water, &c. in cases of fever and madness, and also where the external nerves, viz. of the genitals, are debilitated, to apply stimulants to the spine, &c. The only thing in which Gall's theory might be of use, would be the more exactly ascertaining the place where local remedies are tó to be applied, when single organs may be particularly affected; yet even this advantage does not seem to me to be attainable, so as to render it of essential worth, for neither the operation of the remedy, nor the seat of the organ, can be ascertained so exactly as to justify our presuming that this topical application may be eminently useful. It is certain that bleed ing, or applying cold water, does not affect the spot alone where the application is made, but the whole head, and we may be assured, that if the temperature of the whole brain be made more low by such means, or if it be raised by the application of stimulants, the individual organ will also be affected in like manner. Were it otherwise, did much depend on the exact application upon the morbid organ, it would be a fatal circumstance; for, as the extent and bounds of the several organs cannot be exactly defined, and a morbid organ lies very near others in a healthful state, that application which might be useful to the morbid organ, might at the same time injure the others. therefore, for the drawing off blood, are more properly chosen where the blood vessels within, meet in large branches, or particularly unite with the external vessels. The places, |