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CORRESPONDENCE.

THE ftri&tures of an ingenious Correfpondent, upon Mr. Bryant,

To far as they relate to Philo Judeus and Clemens Alexandri

nus, are not juft. Mr. Bryant hath produced the paffages from those authors at the bottom of the page, and his references are exact. We have examined the originals; and if our Correfpondent had an opportunity of doing the fame, he would find the affertion of Philo Judæus in the fecond volume of his works, p. 84, Mangey's edition; and that of Clemens Alexandrinus in Potter's edition, p. 413. Nevertheless, as Mr. Bryant maintains that Hellenifmus and Hellenes are very ancient terms, and that the name of Hellenes was given to an order of Amonian priests in Egypt; may it not be asked, whether Philo, and Clemens might not mean thofe priests, and not the Grecians properly fo called, when they fay, that Mofes was infructed by the Hellenes? In that cafe, neither Philo nor Clemens will have fallen into 'fo great a mistake as Mr. Bryant has reprefented, unless they should be convicted of this mistake from other circumftances.

ttt The Governor of the Hospitals for the Small-pox and Inoculation, who has favoured us with a letter on the fubject of our account of Baron Dimfdale's Thoughts on Inoculation [in our Review for November, page 394] mult have greatly mistaken our intentions, if he thinks that we had any defign, in that article, of difcouraging the charitable and useful institution, at Pancras, in behalf of which he has addreffed us.

We only wished to fecond the views of Baron Dimfdale, by briefly ftating the inconveniences and dangers which might probably attend the profecution of a certain plan, to which the Baron alludes, formed for establishing a Difpenfary for inoculating the poor of London, at their own boufes: as the execution of fuch a fcheme appeared to us to have a manifeft tendency to spread the natural difeafe among great numbers of perfons who might otherwife have escaped it. We do not imagine the hofpitals at Pancras, and Cold-bath fields, are fo conducted as to furnish room for any apprehenfions of this kind. On the contrary, we have reafon to believe, as well from the papers which our Correfpondent has communicated to us, as from Baron Dimfdale's obfervations on these inftitutions, that they have been highly beneficial to numerous individuals, without producing any injury to the community at large.

From a itate of the Hofpital fent us by our Correfpondent, it appears that 13,343 patients afflicted with the natural fmall-pox have been received into the houfe, from the commencement of this establishment in September 1746, to March 1776; and that 14,843 perfons have been inoculated in this Hofpital during the period included between the years 1752 and 1776.

Erratum, in the Review for April, p. 323, 1. 37, ludicrous is mifprinted, for judicious. This is materially injurious to M. Condillac's Obfervations on Hiftory; and we afk pardon of the ingenious Academician who, we believe, never thought of making merry with that fubject.

APPENDIX

TO THE

MONTHLY REVIEW.

VOLUME the FIFTY-FIFTH

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

ART. I.

Nouveaux Memoirs-New Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres of Berlin, for the Year 1774, Vol. v. 4to. Berlin, printed by Fred. Vofs, 1776.

T

HIS volume opens with the hiftory of an Extraordinary Sleeping Disorder, which affected a lady of Nifmes, in regular and periodical paroxyfms, twice a day, at fun-rife and at noon; the first continuing almoft always until near the time that the second began; and the fecond ceafing about seven or eight o'clock in the evening. The Phyfico-Pfychological Confiderations of the perpetual secretary, M. FORMEY, on this ftrange phenomenon, are curious. It is remarkable, as he obferves, that the paroxyfm of the morning always came on at the break of day, in all the different feafons of the year, and thus began fooner or later according to the length or fhortnefs of the days; and that the other commenced a little after noon; that the former ceafed in part, during a fhort interval before twelve o'clock, during which, the patient had only time to take a little broth before its return; while the second paroxyfm ceased entirely between seven and eight in the evening; fo that the patient recovered the ufe of all her members, until the dawn of the next morning, when her fleep returned with all the characters of the most compleat infenfibility, except a feeble, but free refpiration, and a weak, but regular motion of the pulfe. The farther detail of the circumftances of this extraordinary diforder, merits the attention of the Medical Faculty; becaufe certainly, there are few lethargies recorded in the annals of Phyfiology, that have been attended with fuch fingular APP. Rev. Vol. Iv. fymptoms.

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fymptoms. It is remarkable, that when the diforder lafted fix months, and then ceafed, the patient had an interval of perfect health during the fame fpace of time; that when it lafted a year, the interval was in the fame proportion, and that for four or five days before the interval came, a great quantity of faliva flowed from the mouth, mixed with ferous humours, fo fharp and corrofive, that they affected the parts which they touched in their paffage. At length the disorder ceased entirely, without the leaft appearance of return. The woman lived many years; was always lively and active, though reftlefs and ill-humoured; and died in the 81ft year of her age, of a dropfy, which did not feem to have any connexion with her preceding diforder.

The learned Academician, after having fhewn the great diffi culties that attend our enquiries into the causes of all diforders, whofe paroxyfms are regular and periodical, and the peculiar difficulties that attend the cafe now before us, makes feveral phyfiological and psychological reflections on this case; but the former are too hypothetical, and carry with them fo little perfpicuity, and evidence, that we shall not abridge them here; while the latter are drawn from the moft chimerical, fairy regions of metaphyfical refinement and fpeculation, and tend to fhew little elfe than that our Academician, (who has ferved under feveral philosophical standards, of various colours) thinks matter may be, for ought we know, the feat of intelligence, and poffefs all the qualities that are needlessly attributed to a fpiritual fubftance.

Memoirs, by M. Caftillon, Junior, concerning the Flutes of the Ancients. This fubject has been treated by feveral learned men, particularly Bartholinus, and the celebrated Le Fever (Tanaquillus Faber) but imperfectly; notwithstanding their vast erudition, as they were ignorant of mufic. M. Caftillon, who is both a scholar and a musician, has fucceeded better: his principal defign here, is to prove that the flute of the ancients was a kind of hautboy, which uttered its found by the means of a reed, and that there were two forts of flutes, in one of which the reed was visible, as it is in our hautboy, but was concealed in the other, in the fame manner as it is in children's trumpets. Several paffages of the ancients are elegantly explained in this memoir; in which we find reflections on the different parts of their flutes, and on the names that were given to these inftruments.

MECHANICS.

Account of a Manufcript Memoir of the R. F. Knoll, relating to the manner of rendering the beds of fick perfons more convenient, by a new method of construction, which makes it easy

to

to change the pofture of the patient, without any effort on his part, or his being removed from the bed.

ANTIQUITIES.

Extract of two Letters from Marseilles, addreffed to M. Formey, by Mrs. Barbier de Longpré. Mr. Paw, in his Philofophical Refearches concerning the Egyptians and Chinese, affirms that the Pharaohs coined no money, and that the Egyptians carried on their commerce by weighing the metals, that were employed in fales and purchases. The author of these letters discovered, amidst the medals of her father, (who had refided in Egypt as French conful) an ancient coin, which appears to be of the moft remote antiquity, and elegantly engraven; it represents one of the Pharaohs, and is particularly defcribed in the paper before us.

The two following articles, in the hiftorical part of this volume, exhibit the principal contents of two letters addreffed to M. de Caftillon, the one by Mr. Magellan, in which he mentions the noble telescope, of four feet diameter, which M. Trudaine de Montigne had conftructed for the Academy of Sciences, and gives an account, among other things, of mercury calcined or precipitated per je, by the means of a continual ebullition, during the fpace of two years, which M. de Beaumé prefented to the fame learned fociety,-the other from M. de Luc concerning his new hygrometer, and the experiments of Dr. Priestley on fixed air, which are well known.

EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. MEMOIR I. An Examination of the following Phyfiological Question, "Whether Women are as fruitful, and the Inftances of Twins as "numerous, in modern as in ancient Times ?" By M. de Fran

cheville.

In order to prove that man is not in a phyfical state of weaknefs and degeneracy, and that the principles of life and fecundity, are neither vitiated nor enfeebled in the human race, the learned Academician takes the affirmative fide of the queftion here proposed, and prefents us with an enormous list of women in the fraw, who have brought forth twins, in the remote period of antiquity,-in the middle age,-and in modern times. By twins, however, we are not here to understand pairs; for the author confines his examples to the cafes, where three children or any number above that, have been produced at a birth. Excellent reading, this, for midwives and goffips, and all lovers of the marvellous. Egypt, Greece and Italy, furnish our Academician, in the ift period, with many examples of 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 children produced at a birth, and Pliny mentions a mifcarriage of 12. The 2d period is not inferior to the first in female fecundity, and one cafe is alleged of a Polish Countess in the territory of Cracovia, named Virboflafs, who was deliKk 2 vered

vered of 36 living children at a birth, in the 13th century. Martin Cremonenfius, who wrote the hiftory of Poland in 1270 (the year after this is fuppofed to have happened) affirms the fact; which, however, we are inclined to place in the clafs of fables, along with the delivery of the Countess of Henneberg (at the village of Lofduin near the Hague) of 365 children at one birth; a ftory, which M. de Francheville mentions and explodes under the first period. The 3d period, from the 15th century to the year 1775, furnishes deliveries of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, and an imperfect one of 17; and thus is not inferior in fecundity to the two former. Q. E. D. MEMOIR II. Remarks concerning the Temperament in Mufic. By

M. Lambert.

The question here is, to express a found or any given relation a by means of the numbers 2, 3, 5, in such a manner, that the formule a 2". 3". 5. may be refolved either exactly or with a certain given degree of precifion, the exponents m, n, p, being entire numbers, pofitive or negative.

MEMOIR III. Concerning Aerial Perspective. By M. Lambert,

The fubject of this memoir is that branch of the painter's art, which relates to the degradation of the colour of objects proportionably to their distance, and the conftitution of the atmosphere; and it is here treated in a masterly manner. MEMOIR IV. Confiderations on the Parts of Generation in the Female Sex. By M. Walter.

A very curious and learned memoir, every way worthy the attention of anatomists.

MEMOIR V. Experiments on the Allay of various Metals and Semi-Metals. By M. Margraff.

These experiments are divided into four claffes. The ift contains those that were made with copper and zinc, both as perfectly disengaged from all heterogeneous parts, as was poffible. The author employed the copper of Japan, as being the fineft, and zinc, which he purified by diftillation. The experiments of the 2d clafs were made upon copper mixed with fine pewter of Malaga: thofe of the 3d on copper, mixed with zinc and pewter: thofe of the 4th, on common and malleable brafs, mixed with fine pewter. The effects of these experiments are curious, and deferve the perufal of the chymist,who is referred to the work itself. Continuation of M. Beguelin's Inquiry concerning the Variations of the Barometer.

In the former part of this memoir the learned and ingenious Academician had endeavoured to prove, that the variation of the whole mafs of the atmosphere, and the variation of the

* See the Appendix to the 53d Vol. of the Monthly Review.

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