in as high health as when they left England, and the two ships as perfect nearly as on the day in which they left the docks, It is due to the officers to remark, that the example set by their excellent commander was most cheerfully followed by all; and to the men, that their conduct throughout the trying situation in which they were placed, was most exemplary, On Lieutenants Liddon, Beechey and Hoppner, Captain Parry bestows the most flattering applause. The labours of Captain Sabine of the Royal Artillery speak for themselves; and the Appendix, in which they are arranged, will long be resorted to by men of science, as a most valuable detail of facts and well-digested observations, collected and made in a part of the globe where, in all human probability, it may never again fall to the lot of man to repeat them, or to make others. These facts and observations, accompanied by the clear and distinct statement of the various circumstances by which they were affected, are worthy of the narrative of the voyage by which they are preceded; and we do not hesitate to say that, taken together, they compose a volume which may proudly maintain its station on the same shelf with those of Cook and Vancouver, the first in rank, as in value, of voyages undertaken for the improvement and extension of nautical and geographical knowledge, in our own or in any other language, ART. X.-A Chemical and Medical Report of the Properties of the Mineral Waters of Buxton, Matlock, Tunbridge Wells, Harrogate, Bath, Cheltenham, Leamington, Malvern, and the Isle of Wight. By Charles Scudamore, M.D., Member of the Royal College of Physicians; of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, &c. &c. London. 8vo. 1820. pp. 265. EVERY man who becomes, as the phrase is, hypped, or as it would have been called 100 years back, troubled with the spleen, considers, and with justice according to the theory of the present day, that his disagreeable feelings arise from one or more of the digestive organs not executing their functions properly, and after a trial of the blue pill,' and decoction of sarsaparilla, of Abernethy, turns his attention to the waters of Harrogate, Cheltenham, &c. It was, therefore, desirable, that the world should be in possession of some such treatise as this before us, both as giving the invalid a general view of their effects, and as a book of reference for medical men at a distance. It is not, as they have sometimes seemed to suppose, sufficient for them to know, that that there are aperient waters at such a place, which are of ser vice in carrying off a redundancy of bile; they ought to be ac quainted with their specific differences, that they may be able to ascertain which is best suited to the case before them; and of this the medical attendant, who has a previous knowledge of the patient's constitution, will probably be a much better judge than the physician resident on the spot. We remember some years since asking a very young student in medicine what were the ingredients of the compound aloetic powder; his answer was, 'Indeed I do not know-I know how to produce certain effects by certain cabalistic letters, for instance, P. I. C. (the initials used in one of our hospitals to signify Pulvis Ipecacuhanæ Compositus) is a diaphoretic; P. J. C. (Pulvis Jalapæ Compositus) is an aperient; and D. C. cum T. G. A. (Decoctum Cinchonæ cum Tincturâ Guaiaci Ammoniatâ) a tonic and stimulant; as to the component parts I know nothing. The prescription of the physician who sends a patient to drink any mineral waters, without knowing their component parts, is just as empirical as that of our young friend. We were already in possession of a work by Dr. Jameson, intended to supply some of this most desirable kind of information; and if the science of chemistry had not since received such vast improvements, especially in what regards the analysis of mineral waters, it might still, perhaps, have been sufficient for our purpose: but the discovery of Dr. Murray alone throws a new light on this whole department of science, and teaches us to trace the effects of certain mineral waters to the operation of such ingredients as were scarcely suspected to exist in them so long as the clumsy and erroneous method was adhered to of evaporating the waters to dryness, before the separation of their several solid contents was attempted. Dr. Murray ascertained that these solid contents are essentially different from the substances originally held in solution in the waters: those substances being mutually decomposed during the process of evaporation, and thus producing new combinations of totally different properties. Thus, for instance, a water holding in solution certain proportions of muriate of lime, and sulphate of soda, (so the gods call it, but men Glauber's salt,) both very active medicines, would, if evaporated to dryness, present a residue containing neither of these salts; the relative affinities of the several acids for the different alkaline or earthy bases being altered according to the quantity of the water, by which they are held in solution, so that instead of muriate of lime, and sulphate of soda, we should have sulphate of lime and muriate of soda (common table salt), two substances nearly inert in medicine, and from which, consequently, no just conjecture conjecture can be formed as to the virtues of the water supposed to be impregnated with them. Thus a completely new principle having been introduced into this branch of the science, a revision of the analyses formerly given of mineral springs is manifestly called for. And as these circumstances had rendered a new work on the subject a desirable acquisition, we were glad to find, that it had been undertaken by a writer, whose observations on a subject so closely connected with the present, as that of gout and gravel, have deservedly attracted so much attention. In his introductions to the treatises on some of the Bath waters, we cannot think Dr. Scudamore very happy. They are too much like those lady-like descriptions which we meet with in Watering Place Guides: for instance 'Bath is situated 107 miles west from London, and 12 east of Bristol. This ancient and elegant city is singularly favoured by nature and art, whose joint co-operations have conspired to give it importance and celebrity. The beauty and peculiarity of its situation are perhaps unequalled by any town in England. Planted originally in the bottom of a deep and narrow valley, it continued for ages to be confined to the dimensions which the Romans had first marked out; and, till within the last century, the ancient Roman walls (inclosing a space of about fifty acres) formed the boundaries of Bath. But the fashion and celebrity which it latterly obtained, induced many builders and speculators to extend the streets in all directions, by additional houses, which were instantly occupied upon completion. The country round Bath consists of lias and oolite limestone. With this latter the houses in Bath are constructed. They are remarkable for their exterior neatness and beauty, and being raised over the sides of the broad acclivity of Lansdown (which rises to the north) in irregular groups of streets, squares, parades, circusses, and crescents, they present to the eye an appearance equally singular, magnificent, and beautiful.'-p. 127. This is very fine for Messrs. the Guide Writers; but for Dr. Scudamore, all, except the mineralogical description, is quite infra dignitatem, and savours too much of book-making: indeed we suspect that he was not quite pleased with it himself, as in a note he confesses the plagiarism from Rees's Encyclopædia. His account of the waters themselves is clear and exactly what it should be. He gives an analysis satisfactory to the chemist, and a general and popular description of their properties and medical history for the world in general: nevertheless it seems to us that it would have been more advantageous both to the medical reader and the invalid to have them classed according to their properties, rather than their topographical situation. The physician finds that his patient is likely to receive benefit from a water of a certain description, he therefore wishes to meet with a full account account of waters of that class; and if he found them all under their respective heads, he could make his choice with greater facility, than when, as at present, the information is clogged with a mass of matter to him uninteresting: and, if waters of similar virtues are to be met with in places the most remote from each other, this, so far from being any disadvantage, is the greatest convenience; since of the several springs that suit his case, the patient may be sent to any one, which is nearest, or the most agreeable to him. The physician does not, we apprehend, resolve to send his patient, e. g. to Cheltenham, and then inquire for how many different diseases he may there find relief in its various springs; but, having fixed on the sort of waters required, considers at how many different places such a water may be found, and for this purpose the arrangement we propose would surely be the most suitable. With this view we shall adopt a division into TONICS. Bath The active ingredients in the Buxton water appear to be sulphate of soda, muriate of lime, and muriate of magnesia: upon the average, somewhat more than half a grain of each in the gallon; and certainly a chemist, who knows only the theory of medicine, will feel some difficulty in persuading himself that so very minute a proportion of each can have any very important effect on the system: hence our author observes that the properties of this water are not held in the same general high estimation as the baths. There is, however, no doubt that mineral waters in general do really produce effects greater than could be looked for from their impregnation: of this we have a striking instance in that of Bath, which possesses strong stimulating powers, that have usually been attributed only to the iron it contains, though that does not exceed one sixth of a grain in a gallon; so weak, indeed, is the impregnation of this water that one is inclined to attribute some part of its effects to the silica, and to the azotic gas it contains, though it is difficult to explain how they can produce any besides, some part of the stimulating properties of the Buxton water may be imputed to one or both of these two circumstances-the quantity of fluid taken into the stomach, or the invalids having unknowingly drank at their meals the water from the pump behind the Angel Inn, which contains some considerable portion of iron. Of the benefits derived by dyspeptic invalids from very weakly impregnated waters we shall speak speak generally in the conclusion of our notice of this work; but it must not be forgotten that there is a most important principle to be kept in view (as Dr. Paris has well observed in his Pharmacologia) in the administration of all compound medicines: e. g. that the combined effects of several different drugs of similar properties is generally much greater than the mere sum of their se→ parate effects: they seem mutually to strengthen each other to a disproportionate degree by their combination. : All that can be said of the internal effects of the Matlock and Malvern waters is that they may be employed in all those cases where a pure diluent drink is advisable that scrofula is one of those cases, seems to be indicated by the remarkable fact of the reputation which nearly all mineral waters, however different, sulphureous, chalybeate, saline, and nearly pure, have obtained for the cure of that disease. The effects of the aperient waters are much more observable: that of Harrogate, as may be seen from the following analysis, contains but a small portion of the active aperient, salt, but this deficiency is supplied by the sulphureous impregnation, and 'although of old sulphur was chiefly esteemed as a remedy for cutaneous diseases, yet its use is every year becoming more extended towards other disorders, and it is found to be an active and important agent in exciting the action of the liver, and thus bringing about more regularity of action in the alimentary canal.' Indeed, though sulphur was formerly employed only as a remedy for cutaneous diseases, yet as such diseases are generally connected with a deranged state of the liver and alimentary canal, it was in fact employed, although unknowingly, as a remedy for that derangement. Thus sulphur was used in hæmorrhoids, before it was known that they frequently proceed from congestion in some part of the hepatic system-heretofore they considered only its visible effects; now, having searched deeper and gained a knowledge of its cause, they direct their attack against the root of the evil rather than the fruits. Hence, then, in any marked case of congestion in the circulation of the vena portarum, with an en larged |