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are the chief means of supporting the body in an erect position, remain unexercised; and when, at length, the effort to walk without the prop is made, these muscles do not contract with sufficient power to overcome the habit of contracting which is familiar to their antagonist muscles, and the child either totters or falls on his face.

So soon as an infant is capable of running alone, he should be allowed to take as much exercise as he pleases; and as there is a "restless activity incident to youth, which makes it delight to be in motion," a child ought not to be urged to exceed his inclination, which in this respect is a tolerably certain indication of his power. Neither should a child be taken out for the purpose of what is generally understood by the term "a walk," unless the parents can confide in the judgment of the nurse, not to permit him to walk far on a stretch; or if the parents be in that rank of life which obliges them to be the personal attendants of their children, they should never permit a child under three years of age to walk till he complains of fatigue, and desires to be carried. In certain predispositions of the habit, rickets, scrofula, and mesenteric affections, are the consequence of over fatigue at this period of life. I have more than once witnessed disease brought on in apparently stout, vigorous infants, by long walks the stomach loses its digestive power; the crude, undigested food brings on diarrhea; the limbs become emaciated, the belly large and tense, and the whole features shrunk, owing to the obstruction of the mesenteric glands; and the child dies with

hectic fever,-the victim of ignorance, idleness, and bad management. Yet, children can take more exercise in a given space of time, than can be supported b many adults; but it is accompanied with repeated rests, at short intervals; and perhaps the healthful state of children who have a playground, or other limited space for exercising themselves, may be altogether attributed to this method of proceeding. A child starts off, and runs with all the velocity in his power; but the effort is one of short continuance; he sits down or lies down, till he feels refreshed; then starts again, and repeats his exertions; but in such alternate exercise and rest, he never over exerts his powers. In winter, a spare or empty room is preferable to a playground, for young children; for no error is more productive of disease, than that of endeavoring to render children hardy, by exposing them, in winter, to the alternations of heat and cold, and the severities of the weather out of doors. Pure air is undoubtedly requisite for children; but in towns, and particularly in the metropolis, health is better preserved by keeping infants at home than in sending them abroad, provided means be adopted for amusing their minds and exercising their limbs. This maxim, however, is not meant to apply to children who are old enough to keep themselves warm with exercise; but, when these are taken abroad in cold weather, they should be urged to run, so as to return home in a glow, instead of requiring the aid of a fire as soon as they enter the house.

It is melancholy to observe the efforts of some parents to make their children prodigies of prema

From the London Lancet.

HYDROPHOBIA.

ture intellectual attainments, whilst their health is neglected. Sedentary occupations were never The case of the unfortunate intended by Nature for the infant Ann Hudson, published in the state; and it is extraordinary that Morning Herald of the 6th inthe fatal results of the unfortu- stant, with that of the equally nate experiments which have unfortunate Mr. Powel, as debeen made to rear ssch prodigies, tailed in The Times of yesterday, do not deter parents from sacri- furnish, within one week, two ficing their offspring to the at- melancholy proofs, in addition to tempt. Health is undoubtedly those already on recood, of the the first object to be attained; total inefficiency of every variety and civilized man, with all his of medical treatment recommendpride of learning and refinement, ed by the faculty of the present would do well to imitate the sav- day, in this truly unconquerable age portion of his species in this disease. respect; to leave his progeny unrestrained in childhood to the free exercise of their limbs and the acquirement of health. When the foundation of a powerful and vigorous state of body has been laid in infancy, the culture of the mind may be afterwards pursued without dread of interruption; and it requires no prophetic spirit to prognosticate, that without such a foundation, that most enviable of all the states of which humanity is susceptible, "mens sana in corpore sano," a sound mind in a healthy body-can never be possessed!

During the month of February, the inclemency of the weather brought with it an unusual number of inflammatory diseases, such as coughs, catarrhs, pleurisy, and acute rheumatism. Parents should be very careful not to send out young children in such weather as that of the end of February; and those adults whom business or pleasure leads from home, should be aware, that more risk is incurred by entering a hot room from a cold atmosphere, than from exchanging a heated temperature for the cold air.

March 3, 1827.

T.

It may indeed be questioned, whether the free and always despairing administration of such powerful poisons as Prussic acid, belladonna, nux vomica, acetates of lead and of morphine, do not hasten its fatal issue, and, however revolting the thought, thus become the only boon which the science of physic, in its present state, can offer to the devoted victim. As all those around the sufferer know that the disease leads rapidly to death, if the medicinal poison cannot effect some change in its course, they say, let the drug be till some alteration in the symptoms is produced. But, unfortunately, they do not recollect, or perhaps do not know, that the symptoms arising from the absorption of all and every one of the active poisons hitherto experimented on, are precisely those that characterize the disease resulting from the bite of a rabid dog. Prussic acid, strychnia, upas tieuté, upas anthiar, the poisoned arrows of Java and of Africa, the extract of nux vomica, the essential oil of tobacco, the venom of a viper, when applied to a wounded part, all produce tetanic spasms, stricture of the muscles

porbath, and sudden immersion in cold water; yet none of these remedies are resorted to in the present day.

Modern and wellauthenticated experiments have proved, that when a poison, whether mineral, vegetable, or animal, is applied to a wound, the animal is not affected till absorption has taken place; for if an exhausted cuppingglass be placed over the poisoned part, but one minute before the expiration of the time at which the poison is known invariably to produce its effects, the animal exhibits no symptoms whatever. Now it is a law, that absorption cannot take place in vacuo; therefore the mixture of the poison with the circulating fluids is affected during the last minute of its application, that is, at the instant that the convulsions begin.

of deglutition, irregular respiration, convulsions, and death. The poison of the rabid dog, when it enters the circulation, gives rise to the same train of symptoms. I would ask, then, on what process of reasoning is the expectation founded, that the exhibition of any of these poisons can alleviate the symptoms, or avert the death which they all produce with equal and unerring certainty? How can the phenomena, arising from the mixture of one or more of these poisons with the blood, be distinguished from those of the others, seeing that the characteristic effect produced by all and every one of them on the animal, is irregular contraction, as well of the muscles of voluntary as of involuntary motion? A disease then, of which irregular muscular action is the leading peculiarity, cannot be relieved by poisons capable by themselves,not only of ag- "The notion that the hydrogravating, but of producing this phobic poison is taken up and mixcharacteristic and deadly symp-ed with the blood after the mantom; in fact, as the effects of the medicinal and rabid poisons cannot be distinguished accurately from each other, no rational bounds can be assigned to the administration of the former, nor any very certain criterion established as to the share which the latter may have had in the destruction of the individual. The melancholy experience of some centuries has placed these facts beyond the pale of doubt; yet we find these poisons every day prescribed in hydrophobia, and strange enough to say, to the exclusion of modes of treatment which have authority, experiment, and analogy to recommend them.

In this disease, Galen and Celsus employed, and not without success, the cuppingglass, the va

ner of other substances similarly circumstanced, but that it does not produce its peculiar effects till after it has wandered through the penetralia of the animal during forty days or longer, is in direct opposition to all analogy."* Everything, on the contrary, leads to the belief that the virus, which is afterwards to contaminate the circulation, is generated in the wounded part from the germ first deposited there by the tooth of the dog, just as we see take place in variola, vaccine pock, and lues. The period of assimilation of the fluids of the inoculated part is different in all these. But as soon as absorption of this assimilated

* Experimental Researches by Dr. Barry, page 251.

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matter commences, the symptoms
of the disease begin to show
themselves.

Under the presumptive im-
pression then, that in hydropho-
bia, as well as in all other varie-
ties of poisoning, the transport of
the deleterious matter from the
Wound into the system, and the
appearance of the symptoms pe-
culiar to the poison, follow each
other as cause and effect--as soon
as hydrophobic symptoms come on,
when the cicatrix begins to feel
at all tender, or as soon as there
is sufficient evidence that the an-
imal that inflicted the bite was
rabid, we should-1st. Imme-
diately apply the cuppingglass,
and keep it over the part for an
hour. 2dly. Without having made
any previous incision, we should
dissect out the bitten part. 3dly.
We should reapply the cupping
glass for another hour, to wash
out the vessels by a retrograde
stream. 4thly. We should seal
up the open mouths of the vessels
by the free application of a heat-
ed iron.

During this treatment castor oil, with peppermint water, or some other carminative, should be freely administered, and assafœtida lavements to relieve the gaseous distension of the bowels, which is always a prominent symptom in hydrophobia. The vaporbath, and unexpected immersion in deep water, might be resorted to if necessary; but above all, the cuppingglass should be trusted to, if it be found to suspend the spasms, as it invariably does in every other variety of traumatic poisoning.

It is almost unnecessary to add, that the tetanic drugs already enumerated, and all others of this class, should be most sedulously avoided.

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MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE.

There has been no part of our science which has occupied so little the attention of its professors as medical jurisprudence. Whether this has arisen from the idea that their attention should be exclusively directed to the relative workings of the machine, when perfect and when impaired, rather than to the power by which it was first impelled, and afterwards kept in motion; and, perhaps, acting on the old maxim, divide et impera, they thought it ought to be left to the metaphysician and the lawyer; or whether they have considered its utility and importance not to be sufficient to warrant an attention to the subject, is uncertain; perhaps both motives have prevented medical jurisprudence from bearing its due proportion in systems of medical education. For certain it is, that it has been considered, till lately, unworthy attention, to adduce but one instance in the person of the illustrious John Hunter. This great man, possessing in an eminent degree a clear and comprehensive mind, though too often indefinite and obscure in expressing his ideas, showed, by his evidence in the case of Sir Theodosius Broughton, that he had turned his attention but slightly to forensic

medicine; for it may be clearly detected, that the fault was not in the language, but in the ideas. But though the subject has lately been brought into notice by the works of Paris, Fonblanque, and Dr. Gordon Smith, yet it has been comparatively neglected, and it is but seldom, even now, that we read medical evidence that is worthy of the members of a yclept liberal profession,-men who, considering the intimate connexion and action and reaction of the body and immaterial principle on each other, ought to be well acquainted with the philosophy of the human mind. For the truth of this assertion, let any one refer to the evidence in Lord Portsmouth's case, the definitions of insanity are most absurd as Dr. Armstrong justly observes, in his Lecture on Mania; they might as well have said his complaint was a thingumbob complaint, or a cloud coming over him, or any thing else. It is but a short time since that my attention was attracted to the evidence of a surgeon by the name of Dewsnap, a coroner's Inquest, in a case of suicide, in which he attributed it to temporary excitement of some kind or other. Now, by analysing this, what are we to understand? Excitement is a term, it is well known, introduced into medical literature by Dr. Brown, the founder of the Brunonian system. By his definition of it, we understand that it is that property by the possession of which animals differ from themselves in their dead state, or from any other inanimate matter; hence, being the essential of life, it cannot be temporary or changeable in its kind. But since the time of Dr. Brown, the word has been used in a much more extended sease in medical language, and by it we now understand that state which is the effect of stimu

lants, and attended with increased sensibility and irritability of the nervous system, and increased action in the sanguiferous. This state, of course, is necessarily temporary, but differs not in kind. Now, allowing this to be the proper construction of the expression, the question naturally follows, Is this state ever the precursor of suicide? I apprehend very few medical men would hazard an affirmative. It may, however, be useful to discuss what is that state ? I should answer, a state of depression, caused either mentally by the immediate operation of the depressing agents, or intermediately by the exciting agents, causing collapse after excitement, or bodily by chronic inflammation, producing a change of structure in the brain, and the immaterial principle thus performing its functions through an impaired medium, the mind being the effect, is of course impaired.

I trust, by the insertion of these unconnected observations in your widely circulated Journal, that it may in some measure excite the attention of the profession for their own credit to medical jurisprudence, that they may no longer make use of "words full of sound signifying nothing," leaving out the more important consideration, that in giving evidence in a court of justice as in their ordinary employment, "the issues of life and death are often in their hands." ATTICUS.

A Case in which Chalybeate Pills were retained for an unusual time in the Intestines. By E. BARLow, M.D., one of the Physicians of the Bath Hospital or Infirmary, and of the Bath United Hospital, &c. &c.

THE following case seems to merit publicity; it records an ex

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