Art. 53. Sermons by the late Rev. Mr. Edward Sandercocki 8vo. 6s. bound. Nicoll. 1775. The editor who conceals his name, tells us, that thefe difcourfes were not composed for the prefs; that fome of them were written in the course of the Author's ftated miniftry at Rotherhithe, and the reft in the retirement he enjoyed after he was removed from his charge; and that they are now printed for the gratification of many friends who wished to have fome fuch memorial of him, and in the hope that they will not be unacceptable or useless to others. We are farther informed that thefe Sermons were not felected from the Author's numerous MSS on account of any preference that was due to them; but as they were the leaft difficult to read, and feemed calculated to contribute to the intereft of religion to which the writer, it is added, was fo firm a friend, and fo eminent an ornament. The Editor farther remarks, and we agree with him, that it may in the opinion of fome be a farther recommendation of these discourses, that they were not intended for the public, but as exhibiting a genuine and unadorned picture of a refpectable and amiable mind. The number of these difcourfes is twenty; but they are not diftinguished by any title except the texts from which they were preached. Some of the fubjects are, Making fure our Election; The Wisdom from Above; The Faith of Noah; Thoughtfulness for the Morrow; The Day of Salvation, &c. &c. While they testify the Author's good fenfe and learning, they also discover his piety and earneft defire to promote the best interefts of his hearers. The ftyle is plain, perfuafive, and tending to excite ferious thought and felf enquiry; it is fometimes familiar, and has even in various inftances a kind of bluntnefs; but it is never mean, difgufting or unfuitable to the dignity of the pulpit. Perfons of reading and taste, will, we doubt not, if well difpofed, peruse them with pleasure and advantage, at the fame time that they appear fitted to engage the attention of common capacities. SERMONS. I. Before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary's, on A& Sunday, July 9, 1775. By Richard Nicoll, D. D. Fletcher. II. At the Parish Church of St. Stephen, Wallbrook, before the Governors of the Mifericordia Hofpital, January 24, 1776. By William Dodd, LL. D. 4to. 1 s. Dilly. Sold for the Benefit of the Charity. Text John xiii. 35. ERRATA in our laft. P. 109, 1. 10 from the bottom, for 'from ceffation,' r. from P. 133, in the Latin quotation, for Collinet, r. Collineet. 6 THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For OCTOBER, 1776. ART. I. Medical Obfervations and Inquiries. By a Society of Phyficians in London. Vol. V. 8vo. 6 s. Boards. Cadell. 1776. TH HE benefits which have already accrued to medicine. from the publications of this refpectable Society, are fufficient to enfure a favourable reception to this additional product of their labours; which, if lefs replete with new and important matter than fome of the preceding volumes, is yet well worthy the perufal of every perfon interested in medical ftudies. Obfervations faithfully related, and judiciously felected, can never be void of utility in the healing art, even if they be not remarkable for novelty and fingularity; fince the rules of this art are as yet fo undeterminate, and its objects fo infinitely various, that almost every individual fact may convey new inftruction and information. This remark, however, which might apologize for all, has no reference to some of the contents of the volume before us; of which the Reader may judge from the following abridged view of the whole. The first paper contains an Account of the Effects of Electricity in the Amaurofis, by Mr. Hey, Surgeon at Leeds. This powerful agent, which, in the hands of the philofopher, has been the fource of fo many wonders, has of late rather languished in thofe of the phyfician. Whether this be not more owing to the caprice of fashion, or the effeminacy of the age, than to difappointment in the expectations formed of its efficacy, we fhall not here inquire; Mr. Hey, however, is certainly entitled to approbation for his fuccefsful attempts to render it useful in a diforder generally incurable by the means recommended in common practice. The mode of application is thus defcribed in the account of the first cafe: The electrical machine was ufed twice a day." VOL. LV. Our S Our patient was firft fet upon a ftool with glafs feet, and had fparks drawn from the eyes and parts furrounding the orbits, efpecially where the fuperciliary and infraorbitary branches of the fifth pair of nerves fpread themselves. After this operation had been continued about half an hour, fhe was made to receive for an equal time flight fhocks through the affected parts, which were fometimes directed across the head, from one of the temples to the other, but chiefly from the fuperciliary and infraorbitary foramina to the occiput." The hiftories of cafes are in number feven, and the general refult is as follows: three were perfectly cured by the ufe of electricity and boluffes of mercury and camphor. One was relieved by the fame courfe. One received confiderable benefit, and another temporary relief, by electricity alone; and one died paralytic, during the treatment. The difeafe in all these cafes was recent. I have never, fays the Author, feen the leaft good done to any who have been afflicted with this disorder above two years, though I have tried electricity in feveral fuch cafes.' An exception, indeed, to this obfervation arifes from the fequel of one of the cafes, which prolonged the time from the first feizure to three years. Mr. Hey anticipates the reflections of the Reader with regard to the fhare the mercurial courfe might have in the cure, by obferving that he is inclined to attribute the benefit received chiefly to electricity, because in two of the cafes no medicines were used, yet the progrefs of amendment feemed to be as fpeedy in them as in the reft; and in two a degree of fight was obtained by the firft application of electricity.' In the fecond paper we have the Extract of a Letter from Dr. Rufh of Philadelphia, containing Remarks upon Bilious Fevers and Inoculation. This Article, which may be called lively medical chat, is not fufceptible of an analyfis. We fhall extract from it the following curious fact, for the entertainment of our Readers: Dr. Way, an enterprifing young phyfician in Wilmington, in Newcastle county, informed me a few days ago, that he had made a puncture in his arm with a lancet dipped in fome variolous matter. Notwithstanding he had had the fmall-pox many years before, the fpot where the puncture was made, inflamed, and, in the ufual number of days, was filled with matter. To know whether this matter was of the variolous kind, he took a little of it on the point of a lancet, and inoculated a patient with it: the patient took the infection in the ufual time, and had the fmall-pox in a favourable manner.' The third and fourth Articles contain an Account of the Cortex Winteranus, or Magellanicus, by Dr. Fothergill, with a botanical Defcription by Dr. Solander, and fome Experiments by Dr. Morris. They are accompanied with an elegant plate of the plant, and form form a valuable addition to the natural history of subjects belonging to the materia medica. Some Obfervations on the Ufe of Wort in the Sea Scurvy, collected from the journals of feveral furgeons of Indiamen, by Dr. Badenoch, fucceed. They are greatly in favour of the efficacy of this dietetical medicine, and, it is to be hoped, will operate in recalling it from that neglect into which its ingenious propofer, Dr. Macbride, complains it has fallen. Two cafes, the one, of fingular complaints attending preg nancy; the other, of a fractured fcull, are related in the fixth and feventh papers. They are both inftructive, but not capable of abridgment. In the eighth, Dr. Macbride of Dublin defcribes two cafes of an uncommon accident fucceeding delivery, which was a monftrous fwelling of the labia and perineum, arifing from extravafated blood. In neither of thefe had any violence been used in the delivery, which had been perfectly natural and eafy; nor could the cause of the accident be traced from any other circumftances. The event in both was the bursting of the teguments, which were mortified, and which afterwards floughed away, and the part healed without the leaft remaining complaint. The next Article is an Account of an Asthma, by Dr. Rush of Philadelphia, the caufe of which, as difcovered by diffection after death, was a tumour about the fize of a walnut, on the Jeft fide of the windpipe, near an inch below the cricoid cartilage, feated partly on the trachea and partly on the fophagus. Morgagni has related two cafes of this nature, the defcription of which affured Dr. Rush that his patient laboured under the fame complaint, but at the fame time unhappily informed him that it was incurable. The 10th, 11th, 34th, and 35th papers contain cafes of the retroverted uterus, fuccefsfully treated by repofition; and in the 36th, Dr. Hunter delivers fome general remarks on the difeafe, the reality of which, from this addition of teftimony, cannot now admit of the leaft queftion. He obferves, that from different degrees of the caufes which operate to the production of this complaint, the uterus may be, 1. Fully retroverted; or, 2. Half retroverted; or, 3. So far in its natural ftate, that the orifice of the uterus fhall be downwards. Inftances have occurred of all these varieties. With respect to the method of cure, Dr. Hunter thinks that experience has confirmed the propriety of that which was firft propofed. He ad mits that the retroverted uterus would probably, in many cafes, of itfelf recover its natural fituation. But fince the patient's condition during this interval would be hazardous, and the frequent introduction of the catheter, painful and inconvenient, he thinks it would be better, where it can be done with case, to put an end to the complaint at once, by reduction. We fhall only take the liberty of remarking upon this head, that those cafes in which the reduction might be accomplished with cafe, would be the most likely to receive fpontaneous relief; that in one of the inftances related in this volume, a very confiderable and painful exertion was required; and that many practitioners of great experience have fuccefsfully treated all the accidents attending pregnancy without ever attempting this operation. We by no means would infinuate that the reduction is not fometimes abfolutely neceffary; but the attempt would then be adviseable, let the pain and difficulty attending it be ever fo great: whereas, in cafes of lefs neceffity, it might, perhaps, be better to trust to nature and medicine, than at once to have recourfe to a difagreeable manual operation. In the 12th paper, Dr. Douglas of Kelfo gives an Account of the Efficacy of Hemlock in fchirrous Cafes and Ulcers. This medicine, unequal as it has proved to the fanguine expectations entertained at its first introduction, will probably always preserve a place among the moft valuable articles of the materia medica. The prefent cafes, four in number, are very decifive inftances of its anodyne and refolvent powers, little inferior to some of the most remarkable ones related by Dr. Storck. The fucceeding Article is a cafe of a fingular kind of Hydrocephalus, in which the water was contained between the dura and pia mater, and, making a push through the open fontinel, formed an enormous tumour on the top of the head. We cannot forbear noticing a whimsical blunder of the defigner of the plate accompanying this cafe, who, by equipping the figure with a necklace and female drefs, has given it the appearance of a lady with a high head, inftead of a male child of two or three years old. The fubject of the 14th Article is a painful Affection of the Face; a dileafe fui generis, which Dr. Fothergill, with his diftinguishing fagacity and perfpicuity, points out to the attention of the faculty. Its diagnoftic fymptom is an excruciating pain, continuing only a quarter or half a minute, but returning at irregular intervals, which attacks fome part of the face, or the fide of the head. Contrary to most rheumatic affections, it is ufually more fevere in the day than in the night. Its fubjects are perfons of advanced years, and chiefly of the female fex. The medicine, which has been found most effectual in this complaint is the cicuta; from which circumstance, compared with the sex and time of life of thofe moft liable to the attack, Dr. Fothergill derives a fufpicion that a wandering cancerous acrimony may be the cause of it. Two |