any thing which may tend to its production, Mr. Haslam seems to have paid considerable attention to this subject, being fully aware of its importance; and we may therefore rest securely on his authority. He divides the causes into the two classes of physical and moral :

Under the first, are comprehended repeated intoxication: blows received upon the head; fever, particularly when attended with delirium; mercury, largely and injudiciously administered; cutaneous eruptions repelled, and the suppression of periodical or oc casional discharges and secretions; hereditary disposition, and paralytic affections.

By the second class of causes, which have been termed moral, are meant those which are supposed to originate in the mind, or which are more immediately applied to it. Such are, the long endurance of grief; ardent and ungratified desires; religious terror; the disappointment of pride; sudden frights; fits of anger; prosperity humbled by misfortunes in short, the frequent and uneurbed indulgence of any passion or emotion, and any sudden of violent affection of the mind.'

:

The author has accurately examined whether the effect of the lunar influence could be perceived in the state of his patients, and he decides in the negative. His conclusion respecting the hereditary propensity to the disease seems fully justified by experience; and he states that, where one of the parents has been insane, it is more than probable that the offspring will be similarly affected.'-We have already noticed the fact announced by Mr. H. that, in confirmed insanity, dissection has always shewn a morbid state of the brain and its membranes; and he now inquires whether this morbid state is to be regarded as the cause or the effect of the disease. He embraces the latter opinion, in which we are disposed to coincide with him; yet we must confess that "much may be said on both sides."

In the chapter intitled probable event of the disease,' we meet with many interesting particulars. Women, we learn, are more subject to the disease than men, nearly in the proportion of 5 to 4; a circumstance which seems in part to depend on the functions peculiar to the female sex. In the course of ten years, 80 patients came under Mr. Haslam's care, whose disease followed the puerperal state but 50 of them were perfectly restored. The probability of recovery from insanity is greater in proportion to the youth of the patient but it is remarked that, at any age, the prospect of recovery is very small, after the disease has continued for any length of time. It most frequently makes its appearance between the ages of 30 and 40.-On the subject of religious

T 4

madness,

madness, we meet with some remarks which we consider as too important to be withholden from our readers:

'What can be expected, when the most ignorant of our race at tempt to inform the multitude; when the dregs of society shall assume the garb of sanctity and the holy office; and pretend to point out a privy path to heaven, or cozen their feeble followers into the belief that they possess a picklock for its gates? The difficulty of curing this species of madness will be readily explained from the consideration, that the whole of their doctrine is a base system of delusion, rivetted on the mind by terror and despair; and there is also good reason to suppose, that they frequently contrive, by the grace of cordials, to fix the waverings of belief, and thus endeavour to dispel the gloom and dejection which these hallucinations infallibly

excite.

Although the faction of faith will owe me no kindness for the disclosure of these opinions, yet it would be ungrateful were I to shrink from the avowal of my obligations to methodism for the supply of those numerous cases which have constituted my experience of this wretched calamity.'

Mr. Haslam's observations on the management of the insane are very generally deserving of attention, although we are not aware that any of them can be regarded as either new or peculiar. We regret that he has chosen to indulge in a long train of sarcastic abuse of Dr. Cox, If Dr. C. has committed any errors, or fallen into any absurdities, it was surely more for the interest of science that they sbould be pointed out in a serious and candid manner; and certainly his proposal of the horizontal swing is not so palpably ridiculous as to merit no farther trial or consideration. With respect to the remedies for insanity, the principal circumstances noticed by Mr. Haslam, which can be considered as adding to our knowlege on the subject, are that insane persons are not particularly constipated, or difficult to be purged, though in some cases their stomach and bowels are found to be more than usually inert: but that when this disposition takes place, the removal of the constipation brings back the healthy state of the digestive organs. Mr. H. is not friendly to the administration of emetics; nor does any article of the materia medica appear to have a specific salutary power over insanity.

As to the general merits of this production, we are disposed to estimate them highly. Though it cannot be considered as in every part equally satisfactory, nor to be as perfect as perhaps the author, by a little more attention, might have made it, yet we regard it as on the whole the most useful treatise that has been published on this melancholy topic,

ART.

ART. VIII. Essay on Warm and Vapor Baths; with Hints for a new Mode of applying Heat and Cold, for the Cure of Disease, and the Preservation of Health. Illustrated by Cases. By Edward Kentish, M. D. Physician to the Bristol Dispensary. 8vo. pp. 114. 45. 6d. Boards. Mawman. 1809.

THE subject of bathing, medically considered, is not only interesting and important, but it has occasioned much. diversity of opinion in this country; and it is so connected with false hypothesis, that some acuteness is requisite to ascertain the real value of the experience which we possess respecting it. Several of our medical philosophers, among whom the late Dr. Currie holds a high rank, have contributed materially to elucidate the effects of temperature on the living body; a question which must be solved, before we can obtain any certainty respecting the operation of the warm bath in the cure of disease: but, without detracting from the merit of either Dr. Currie or his contemporaries, it may be remarked that they rather opened the path for future investigation, than arrived at absolute certainty on the several disputable points which fell under their consideration. We may indeed go farther, and assert that, in the present state of physiological knowlege, many questions which are involved in this discussion can be answered only imperfectly; and that the utmost which we can expect, from those who undertake to illustrate this subject, is that they should diligently collect facts, and, separating them as much as possible from all extraneous matter, should store them up, in order that at some future period, when they shall be sufficiently multiplied, a more regular system may be formed from them.

We cannot, however, compliment Dr. Kentish on the success with which he has treated the question. Many of the remarks which he brings forwards are common-place and trifling; hypothesis and fact are indiscrimately blended together; and the effects of the warm bath are magnified to such an extravagant degree as to produce scepticism rather than conviction. The volume commences with a description of the baths that have been used by different nations, particularly by the antient Romans, by the Russians, and the Turks; among whom the practice of bathing has been carried to the greatest extent, both as a remedy for disease and as a luxurious gratification. To a person who is totally unacquainted with the subject, some little amusement may be afforded by these details but they contain nothing that has not been often repeated before, or that might not be obtained from the most obvious sources. Chapter 4th presents the author more in

the

the character of an original writer; and here he undertakes to give an account of the functions of the skin. The consideration of these functions occupies, however, a small part of the chapter which bears this title; and we must confess that the few remarks which are offered do not impress us with a very favourable opinion of Dr. K.'s acquirements. He observes that, as the vapor bath has an extensive influence on cutaneous diseases, it may be necessary to take a cursory view of that most important and extended organ the skin;' and this organ, as it is called, is thus described. This integument, which covers the whole body, is formed by the minute terminations of all the superficial and exhalant arteries, nerves, veins, and absorbents of the system; this is covered by the colouring, or Blushing membrane, and defended from the too rude impressions of external agents by the scarfskin.' Our medical

readers will immediately perceive the errors which enter into this description. Although arteries, veins, nerves, and absorbents, may have their termination in the skin, they do not compose its substance; the basis of the skin, as is well known, is a membranous body, consisting of condensed celBular matter; and as to the colouring or blushing membrane, we acknowlege that we are ignorant of its existence. We are next told that the principal use of the skin is to carry off from the system the redundant heat and moisture.' Now, though we believe that this operation may be performed at the surface of the body, by vessels which pass through the skin, yet this is clearly not the office of the skin itself, but of the secreting and exhaling organs which pass through it; the use of the skin, properly so called, is very different: but to give support to the perspiratory vessels may indeed be one of the accessory purposes which it serves.

In the course of this chapter, the author remarks, and with justice, that in cases in which sweating is to be produced, it would be better to effect this object by means of external heat, applied under the form of the warm or vapor-bath, than by the administration of what are called sudorific medicines; which produce perspiration in a less direct way, and probably may have the effect of weakening the stomach. We cannot, however, keep pace with Dr. Kentish, when he proceeds to assert positively that the operation of mercury consists in its increasing all the secretions;' and when, assuming this as a settled point, he argues from it that, in those diseases in which mercury is employed, half the quantity usually administered -might be spared, by conjoining it with the warm bath.

We have before noticed that Dr. K. falls into the common error, of attempting to excite the interest of the reader in

behalf

behalf of his favourite remedy by exaggerating its effects; and in proof of our assertion we shall make a quotation which, our readers will perceive, refers to the frequent use of the warm bath by the Russians :

It is not to be doubted that the Russians owe their longevity, their robust state of health, their, little disposition to certain mortal diseases, and their happy and cheerful temper, mostly to these Baths. The perspiration, the most important of all secretions, must continually go on better in a body constantly kept soft by bathing. A great number of impurities which, privily, lay in us the train to tedious and dangerous distempers, are timely removed, ere they poison the blood and the juices. All exanthematic diseases are abated by bathing: consequently, then, the small-pox; and if this dreadful disorder be actually less fatal in Russia than in other countries, this phænomenon needs not to be attributed to any other cause than their great use of Vapour-Baths.'

Of a publication by the Honourable Basil Cochrane, in reference to the subject here discussed, some report will be found in the Catalogue part of this Review.

ART. IX. Institutes of Biblical Criticism; or, Heads of the Course of Lectures, on that Subject, read in the University and King's College of Aberdeen. By Gilbert Gerard, D.D., Professor of Divinity, and one of His Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary for Scotland. Svo. pp. 471. 10s. 6d. Boards. Murray. 1808. WHEN comparisons are made between the three learned

professions, it is not unusual to hear the remark that abilities and extensive knowlege are necessary to make a good physician or a good lawyer, but that "any thing will do for a parson." We notice this vulgar error in order to remonstrate against and to correct it. Abundantly more is requisite to the endowment of a well-informed and sound theologian, than is generally supposed not only by the people at large, but even by those who become candidates for the sacred ministry. The clergyman who is anxious to be erudite, to trace to its original sources the divine fountain of which he is to dispense the waters, and to pursue the several ramifications of biblical criticism, in order to qualify himself for the complete illustration of the Holy Scriptures, must be a laborious and persevering student; and he must embrace a compass of literature which is not necessary in other professional walks. So far from saying that any body will do for the pulpit, we should rather adopt the language of St. Paul, with reference to the duties of the sacred office, "Who is sufficient for these things?" and we

should