in the day for almost any class of readers. The European stomach, we think, has given the most decisive signs of having now somewhat more than enough of the spicery of oriental fiction and mythological history; and we think the better of its structure for its feeling that nausea. The part denominated, strictly, the History of Java, might advantageously have been very much more brief. As to the documents relative to the principles, proceedings, and effects, of the late temporary English government of the Island, we must not raise any question on the right of the excellent Administrator of that government to have them added to the bulk of a work, of which the only fault is, as we have said before, its being too large. But in saying this, we do not mean that it is tedious and prolix in the manner of writing it has no such fault. There are, indeed, some repetitions, owing to the haste with which the work was prepared. But the excess attributed is actually the immense quantity of information, extended to a minuteness of detail which, while it displays the indefatigableness and the precision of the Author's inquiries, really loads the work with a superfluity of particulars, and exhibits Java in larger dimensions than it has any fair claim to fill.

The plates, chiefly by Mr. Daniell, are very numerous, of excellent workmanship, and full of oriental character. Those exhibiting the persons and dress of the people are carefully coloured. The map, of nearly four feet long, (engraved by Walker,) is as beautiful as it is possible to conceive. Though the price is so considerable, the book is cheaper than any other of the same class that we have lately seen.

Art. II. An Inquiry into certain Errors relative to Insanity, and their
Consequences; physical, moral, and civil. By George Man Bur-
rows, M.D. F.L.S. &c. 8vo. pp. 320. London. 1820.
THAT mental alienation, manifesting itself as it does by the

most appalling characteristics, associated with circumstances very dissimilar in appearance from mere bodily derangement, should have been contemplated in the earliest periods of society with especial horror, needs not awaken our surprise. Nor can we even wonder that this afflicting visitation should have been considered not simply as one of the manifold ills which man is heir to, but as a disorder decidedly and exclusively moral; as even a particular and marked indication of the Divine displeasure. When, indeed, medicine learned to free itself from the fetters of sacerdotal superstition, and to prefer its claims to rank among the physical sciences, these xxa o notions respecting the origin of mental maladies, began visibly to decline. The

great father of the therapeutical art conceived himself justified in bringing into the investigation of every species of deviation from health or sanity, all the aid that could be afforded him by the contemplation of either natural or physical agents: accordingly, we find that as well by Hippocrates as his immediate successors, disorders of the mind were viewed and treated as events of ordinary, rather than of supernatural occurrence. Man, however, is fond of the marvellous; and thus the miserable metaphysics of the middle ages contributed to restore a disposition to regard the insane as subjects of a particular dispensation, and as therefore out of the reach and agency of ordinary remedial means; a disposition which even down to the present day has not ceased to manifest itself.

But the same constitution of mind,' it has been remarked, which favours implicit belief, facilitates also the influence of 'doubt.' We are not sure whether an error the exact opposite of the dangerous one just adverted to, is not becoming in some quarters far too influential, as it respects both speculation and practice. We are sure, indeed that a mode of thinking very injurious to the moral interests of society, has recently established itself in many minds upon the false and often refuted supposition, that every truth, whether physical or moral, must be grounded solely on perception; that because we see nothing in the bodily fabric but bone, and fibre, and vessel, therefore nothing beyond these visible and tangible substances does or can exist; that duality of being (as it has been termed by a recent writer*) is a mere chimera, and that physical impulse and moral motive are equally and alike under an absolute subordination to organic conditions. The natural and necessary inferences from these assumptions are, that vice is as truly a disease, or deviation from health, as is fever or inflammation; that jails are expedients of precisely the same nature and design as mad-houses; and that the practice of virtue, is as much an organic act as is the digestion of the food or the circulation of the blood!

Reserving for another opportunity, the examination of certain modern automatical theories, we shall now confine ourselves to the question, how far it is proper to speak of insanity as a bodily disease.

Some morbid affections are so palpably connected with a certain condition of the bodily organization as to leave not the smallest room for doubt or disputation. If, for instance, an individual be attacked with pain in his breast, impeded respiration, and cough, together with such disturbance in the circulation as denotes inflammatory action, he is pronounced, without hesitation, to be labouring under an inflammation of the

* See London Medical Repository. Vol. xiii. page 487.)

lungs; or should the same species of organic disturbance implicate the vessels of the brain, this disease also would be with equal precision inferred from its appropriate symptoms. But when, of two individuals apparently in the same condition as to the absence of any topical indices of deranged action, with the pulses of the arm and the head beating in each to precisely the same tune and number, one, by his whole deportment, shall substantiate the validity of such exterior marks of order and harmony; while the other shall betray by every motion of his features and every expression from his lips, that in his interior, on the contrary, storms and tempests are raging with ungovernable fury; who shall say what constitutes the organic difference between the one and the other?Again, the violence of mental agitation shall prove sufficient to destroy life, and a post mortem examination of the most scientific and scrutinizing kind, shall be instituted without affording any structural explanation of the catastrophe; and even when the pathological investigator does find some internal marks of disease, it is by no means always certain but that these marks are the evidence of the effect rather than of the cause. This, then, is the point upon which we wish to fix the reader's attention; that, while the notion of mental, disorder without some bodily change, involves an untenable assumption, such disorder is, in very many instances, bodily in a far different sense from those deviations from health which implicate parts of the frame that are cognizable by the senses. And there is a further distinction likewise to be noticed, which respects the source, or ab-origine induction, of the morbid state; whether such source shall have been purely mental, or whether the first link in the chain shall have been formed of some positive disturbance in the physical functions.

The medical error of those theorists in the present day, who are for referring every thing, from first to last, to organization, and organization alone, is, that insanity is nothing but vascular irritation, and that to subdue inflammatory excitement, and to control the fury of mania, constitute one and the same operation. Our conclusion is widely different; and while we would have every case of mental sickness placed as early as possible under the management of the judicious physician, and not consigned to the custody of the mere keeper of a madhouse; we would be anxious to seek for such a physician as, in his partiality for drugs and medicaments, should by no means lose sight of the important distinctions just referred to; but who should be fully and practically aware of that occasional mastery, both in health and disease, which is exercised by the sentient over the organic conditions of the human frame.

Of the importance of medicine in these most melancholy

ailments, there can exist no reasonable doubt. The book before us contains satisfactory evidence that one of the most false, and mischievous, and cruel notions that has ever been maintained or acted on, is that which regards madness as absolutely, and from its very nature, incurable; and places receptacles of the insane in the light of mausolea of mind, or mere depositories for confining and securing their wretched inmates. Very many individuals there are at this moment pacing the incurable wards of lunatic asylums, with nothing of man about them but the mere human form, who might, but for this fatal error which we are now deprecating, have been linked in the social circle, and enjoying all the privileges of our nature!

The late celebrated Dr. Willis, it is known, was wont to assert, that nine out of ten cases of insanity recovered, if placed under his care within three months from the attack. This assertion has for the most part been regarded by the faculty of medicine as untenably presumptuous and empirical; and we must confess that we have ourselves ranked among the number of sceptics on this point. The present Writer, however, thinks that Dr. W.'s statement was probably not in the least overcharged. Those who derided Dr. Willis,' he says, had neither his experience in this malady, nor the opportunities of treating it in its early, and therefore most favourable, stage; and few ever so fully possessed the essential auxiliaries to success as that physician.'

We have marked, it will be noticed, by italic characters, those passages which point out the necessity of early treatment. It is the concurrent testimony of all who have had to do with the insane, that the principiis obsta is most especially applicable to this disordered state, the proportion of successful cases being incomparably high when they have been of short duration; a fact,' says our Author, which cannot be too earnestly enforced on the recollection of all who may from the development of symptoms have reason to suspect an access of 'mental derangement, whether in a friend or patient.' The statement which Dr. B. presents as containing a synopsis of his own practice, exhibits a proportion of cures in recent cases as great as 91 in 100, while in old cases the cures stand at only 35 to 100. The aggregate of all his cases in a given time, presents the proportion of 81 in 100.

We hope that this consolatory representation of the curable nature of mental sickness, will induce other private practitioners in the same manner to record the results of their own observation.

For,' says the present Author, extraordinary as it may appear, no detailed or even general report of the result of private practice in this malady, has ever been published by any British author.' A

defect so remarkable and unexpected, almost justifies the reproach of foreigners-that the many learned English writers who have published on mental affections, have displayed greater fondness for speculative disquisition than practical induction. And hence another reason for that general scepticism in this country, on every matter connected with insanity or insane people.'

We find by the above account of Dr. B.'s individual practice, that the allegations of Dr. Willis are even more than realized; and it further appears that in a public institution (La Salpetriere) in France, the numbers of cured are very little lower than the assigned proportions of that physician: What too must be thought particularly worthy of remark in reference to the present point, is, that the celebrated York Retreat, which is appropriated to the deranged among the Society of Friends, and which excels every other asylum for lunatics in moral qualities,' presents a statement of cures inferior to that of several public institutions; the proportion of cures being, (up to 1811) 36 in 100. Now the able and amiable conductor of the Retreat is avowedly hostile to medical remedies employed in any other than an incidental and occasional way, and he even exultingly talks of the little annual expenditure for medicine in his establishment. In this instance, then, Dr. Burrows thinks, that the experimentum crucis is nearly afforded in favour of medicine for mental ailment, since, did judicious guardianship and moral management comprise every thing needful for the insane, the inmates of the Retreat would have the greatest possible chance of recovery. In comparisons of this kind, however, it ought ever to be recollected, that the particular circumstances of the individual cases may make a vast difference as to the result of their maladies; and it would seem sufficiently probable, that when mental aberration does occur among a people marked as the Quakers are by sobriety of habits and steadiness of character, it is much less likely to prove transient than when falling upon individuals in more general and promiscuous society.

It is gratifying to learn from the present Writer, that, since the year 1816, there has been a conspicuous increase in the ratio of cures at Bethlem, which, up to that period, had been retrograding from what it was in former years. This account must afford the most heartfelt pleasure to the members of that Committee, who so ardently, so assiduously, and in a manner in every respect so praise-worthy, engaged in effecting a reform as to the economy and management both of public and private asylums. Indeed, since that investigation took place, (we speak from personal observation,) it is delightful to witness the great improvement which is conspicuous in every institution you enter, whether of a more public or more private description. Even if Dr. Burrows, and other writers who take a similar