decline of life. His long career has been spent in endeavouring to alleviate the sufferings of the most unfortunate class of human beings that the imagination can conceive to exist, and therefore he is entitled to the gratitude and respect of mankind. In private life he is much esteemed. He possesses a kind benevolent disposition, and is much beloved by a large circle of admiring friends and relations.

*

Among our mad-doctors, the names of Sutherland, Sir William Ellis, late physician to the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum, Burrows, Monro, Morison, Pritchard, Conolly, Sir Andrew Halliday, and Combe, stand prominently forward. These physicians are generally examined in disputed cases of insanity, and much weight is attached to their evidence. They are all either connected with public or private establishments for the cure of mental derangement; and, with the exception of Dr. Monro, have also written successfully on the subject of lunacy.

Sir W. Ellis has now under his care an establishment, for the cure of the insane, at Southall, Middlesex.

CHAPER III.

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEDICAL MEN.

Prejudice against Scientific Medical Men-Difference be ween an Englishman's fever, and a Frenchman's-The matterof-fact Practitioner-The Value of Principles-Neglect of Scientific Men in England-Encouragement given by the French Government-John Lock, a Medical Man-His Life and Death-Life of Sir W. Browne-Dr. Black-Dr. Young -Dr. Wollaston-Tobias Smollett.

THE paths of science are not always those of peace and prosperity to medical men. It is a singular anomaly in the constitution of medical affairs, that a man's success as a practitioner is often in an inverse ratio to his scientific attainments! This is in a great measure to be attributed to the circumstance of the public believing that scientific knowledge is incompatible with practical skill or tact, as well as to the encouragement which the great give to ignorant and shallow pretenders to a knowledge of medicine.

It may be true, to a certain extent, that he who devotes his whole time to the study of any one of th

sciences which are embraced in the study of medicine, to the exclusion of all practical investigations, is not pursuing a course best adapted to make him an acute practitioner; yet it must not be forgotten that even in the minor details and minutiae of practice, a man of science may exhibit his superiority over the merely matter-of-fact and experienced physician or

surgeon.

The practice of medicine can only be improved in proportion as it is studied as a science, upon which all medical treatment ought to be based. Such a case may exist, as a clever practical physician who is unable to describe the principles which guide him in his practice, but where is he in cases of emergency? If any unforseen difficulty presents itself-if any deviation occurs from what he has been accustomed to witness, he is immediately like a ship driven out of its course, or a commander without his chart or compass he cannot refer to first principles-he is perplexed; and being unable to account for the strange phenomenon, abandons the patient to his fate!

Medical facts, unless they be collated, and their relations to each other and to general laws deduced by a careful induction, lose much of their value, and become little better than the undigested erudition of an almanack-maker, and afford no means of judging of the truth or falsehood of a principle or rule of practice.

It is indeed this capacity for generalizing particulars and deducing inferences, that elevates man above the brute, and stamps him with the character of

rationality. The brute is furnished with senses to observe, and capacity to recollect; but this observation, and this recollection, are confined to particular facts and unconnected events. He is not led by one phenomenon to the observation of another, and thus induced "to register the two as similar appearances."*

In no science so much as in medicine is a reference to principles of so much consequence, for no where does the mere sequence of events, the post hoc propter hoc mode of argument, so often lead into error. "Without principles," says Dr. Cullen, "deduced from analytical reasoning, experience is a useless and a blind guide."

From the preceding observations the reader will perceive the immense superiority which the man of science has over the practitioner who has nothing to guide him, but undigested and unarranged facts. The former is seldom or never at a loss, the latter is always floundering and uncertain in his practice.†

We are not maintaining that the man of science, without experience is sufficient to constitute a good practitioner; but we do avow that in proportion as a medical man has a knowledge of the principles of medicine, so does he become qualified to grapple

* Dr. Uwin.

"He who follows certain arts or practical rules, without a knowledge of the science on which they are founded, is the mere artizan or the empyric; he cannot advance beyond the practicerules which are given him, or provide for new occurrences and unforseen difficulties."-Abercrombie "On the Intellectual Powers," p. 18.

successfully with the various alarming diseases which will demand attention in the course of his practice.

The following anecdote, related by Dr. Moore, affords a fine specimen of the inferences that are formed, and practice that is directed by mere empirical experience. "A French student of medicine lodged in the same house, in London, with a man in a fever. This poor man was continually teazed by the nurse to drink, though he nauseated the insipid liquids that were presented to him. At last, when she was more importunate than usual, he whispered in her ear, "For God's sake bring me a salt herring, and I will drink as much as you please." The woman indulged him in his request; he devoured the herring, drank plentifully, underwent a copious perspiration, and recovered. The French student inserted this aphorism in his Journal: "A salt herring cures an Englishman in his fever." On his return to France, he prescribed the same remedy to the first patient in fever to whom he was called. The patient died; on which the student inserted in his Journal the following caveat: "N. B. Though a salt herring cures an Englishman, it kills a Frenchman."

It is lamentable to think how little encouragement is offered to medical men, in this country, to pursue with ardour their researches into the dominions of science.

In England the members of the medical profession are compelled to devote nearly the whole of their attention to the practical part of medicine. Very few men commence the study of physic with a