gularities with respect to diet and habits of life,-have been those who are proverbially careless as to coming danger, and who superstitiously quail when the danger comes,-or such as are too much shut up against the wholesomeness of ventilation, and whose frames are made especially vulnerable to the shafts of disease, by the habit of substituting exciting spirits and vapid materials of sustenance for substantial and wholesome food.

Secondly, were the disorder strictly a contagion, and not refer rible to the state of the circumambient air, we should not have had, as it is admitted on all hands we have had, affections allied to, if not a degree of, the same disorder for more than half a year previously to the present-as maintained by the contagionistsnew disorder. It is, indeed, one of the laws of pestilence, that both before and after its acmè, minor measures of distemper are frequent, so that we may not yet have seen the worst; but if worse is still pending, we take comfort from the power of preventive measures, and from the great improvement in the medical polity of this great nation.

Thirdly. A well founded confidence and an unpresumptuous hope are allowed by all to be great securities against much more of distemper than we hitherto have had, or are even likely ever to have; and we verily believe that the most strenuous contagionist is not able to adduce a single instance of what he would consider as malignant cholera, where the individual has been in precisely the same state in which he ought to have been, even without reference to the fear of disease.

We now proceed to a very cursory statement of what appear to us to be the constituents of Cholera; and to put the question generally to the good sense of some of the profession, whether there may not have been a little too much of confounding degree with kind, and, if we may so say, quantity with quality of disease? This question, we shall submit very briefly and very respectfully, as we do not desire the ascription of partizanship, and would prefer, in the present instance at least, that our readers should infer from our data, rather than defer to our dicta.

Cholera is said to be bilious or spasmodic; the first characterized chiefly by an inordinate secretion of bile, that bile also being acrimonious; the other more properly marked by spasms and locked up secretions. In either case, there is for the most part, and almost necessarily, a primary disorder of the great central mass of nerves at the region of the stomach; this nervous derangement being induced by causes which act more directly or less immediately upon the stomach. Thus, if a patient, after eating a hearty meal of indigestible matter, becomes cramped in his stomach, and cramped in his muscles, and cramped in the organs which perform the offices of secretion, we should say, that the exciting source of the malady was indigestion; whereas, if the brain,

from alarm, or if the skin, from exposure to damp and cold, or the nervous system generally, from the several sources which exhaust nervous energy, were the first points of attack, we should consider these as the exciting causes, and indigestion, with failing secretion and assimilation, the immediate consequences; and this would apply either to the bilious or the spasmodic kind of derangement. The blueness of the skin, and other signs of irregular circulation, are plainly traceable to the lungs partaking of the general commotion or morbid quiescence, and to the want of due oxygenation or due decarbonization of the general mass of blood. In fact, the course, as Mr. Searle has stated in his pamphlet, is greatly analogous to the circumstances of malignant fever in general, which, if it do not destroy the vital principle in its first attack, sets up all these irregularities in the circulating and secreting and sentient organs. When bile, instead of being locked up, is poured forth in abundance, spasms throughout the frame are occasional concomitants; but the resulting disorder does not mount up to such a malignant height, partly because the flow of bile is in some measure a cure of the complaint, or rather, it is one of the main links in the chain of processes which nature endeavours to establish for the expulsion of the morbid visitation.

But surely, whether the secretions be suddenly and forcibly arrested, or whether they flow out in more than ordinary abundance, it does not necessarily follow, that the malady, in the one and in the other case, is of varied kind. We would ask, what is meant by a different disorder-by the spasmodic and bilious division-by mild and malignant malady-by English and Asiatic Cholera? Do the employers of the terms intend to announce, that the predisposition and excitants are different? Then we are willing to go with them to the full length of their assumptions and inferences; for neither the same disposing nor exciting causes can by any possibility exist in our latitudes and with our temperature; and the disease (Asiatic Cholera) can no more exist here, than can the yellow fever be conveyed from a West India island to the British isles. Here, indeed, we may have bilious fevers in considerable number, and rising up to much individual intensity; but it is impossible that the endemic of the transatlantic shores can ever become endemic with us, inasmuch as the exterior circumstances and internal susceptibilities are not pre

sent.

But we are prevented from pursuing this subject; and we hasten to say a very few words on the treatment of Cholera; a very few words, because we think that general principles are here, as in other cases of disease, quite incapable of abstract or undeviating application; every fresh case being, as the artists say, a fresh study; and because we think, that the expediency of

this or that measure must be gathered from general principles of pathology, rather than from literary or even oral instruction.

The great leading principles are, however, to dissolve spasm, thereby to restore the secretions, and to bring about a healthy influx of nervous power, and a freedom in the blood's circulation. The first indication may be fulfilled by strong emetics, as mustard-seed flower in large quantities, or sulphate of zinc; or it may be assisted by drawing blood from a vein, or by the administration of drastic purges; but we sometimes meet with cases where the primary collapse is so extreme, and in others where the pain is so excessive, that stimulants and opium, and warm or rather hot fomentations and bathing are immediately demanded, or life will succumb to the first shock. The sooner, however, that the alvine secretion be restored, the better: indeed, when, in the spasmodic form of the disease, the discharges, from being white and ricey, or dark, as if blood were broken down and passed by the bowels, become truly fæcal, the malady may be regarded as having been got very considerably under, and the remaining symptoms will be watched over and met according to their number and force. In the general way, however, no continued commotion is set up, and this attack leaves the person in as full health as it found him. We ourselves heard the anecdote that was a few days since recorded in the public papers; viz. a physician, having heard that some Cholera cases had just broken out in a dirty alley at the east end of the town, lost no time in repairing thither, and, upon his asking about these cases of a woman who was just coming out of the court as the doctor was entering it, she replied, "I am one of them, Sir."

In respect to preventives, to say much, were but to reiterate what we meet with in every newspaper, and magazine, and Cholera bill of the day. Confidence and regular habits, warm clothing, especially of the feet, the careful avoidance of damp places, generous but not luxurious living in the way of diet, are the great preservatives against complaints of the stomach and bowels. All indigestible articles of food ought, under the present circumstances of epidemic susceptibility, to be more especially refrained from. Pork is proverbially bad. Veal to some stomachs is still worse. All dessert articles are noxious. Oranges are a bilious, rather than antibilious fruit. Pickles are especially unwholesome. Violence of temper should be bridled, and every source of mental agitation shunned. A good friction, every morning, of the whole surface of the body is desirable. At all times the cutaneous vessels ought to be kept free from obstruction by ablution and friction, but more especially so when stomach disorders are prevalent, on account of the great sympathy and connexion with the condition of the skin and the state of the alimentary passages. When stomach

affections threaten, lose no time in taking about half a fluid ounce (a table-spoonful) of tincture of rhubarb mixed with a tea-spoonful of common magnesia, or a third of the quantity of carbonate of soda in a glass of water, or, what would be much better, simple peppermint water. Should much pain attend a stomach attack, and that be in the night, or at a time and place when medical assistance could not promptly be procured, let the tincture of rhubarb be taken without the magnesia, and five and twenty drops of tincture of opium be added. Further than these directions, we dare not go; indeed, we have already trespassed somewhat beyond the lawful province of Reviewers; but the circumstances are such as we have thought might justify a trifling departure from critical regularity and dignity.

Our readers will have perceived that we do not rank with "Alarmists." At the same time, caution, if it be unaccompanied by mistrust, can never be considered as superfluous. It is to care

lessness in the first place, and then to superstitious fears and wonderments succeeding, that we are in a very great measure, as previously intimated, to attribute the run of Cholera through the pauper districts in which it may first appear.

Before we conclude, we must again say, that very much still remains mysterious, both in reference to the northern cause of the Eastern disease, and as it respects infection generally. Does the atmosphere convey the seeds of distemper from district to district? How does it happen that a particular course is chosen for the transmission? And how is it to be explained, that air, which one should suppose would have its particles freely and constantly interchanging, is in one spot laden with distempering miasm, in another quite free from such poison? All Eastern travellers know, that the Levant plague prevails in one spot, while a near one is totally exempt; and this without any discovered peculiarities, or differences of latitude, or even contiguity, to explain the circumstance. The Roman Malaria is said to infest one side of a street, and to leave the other side untouched; yet, let the chemist subject the atmospheres of the two contiguous localities to every trial his science is capable of effecting, he will find not the smallest difference in their apparent constituents. All the varied hypotheses that have been proposed in order to account for infectious conditions of the air, such as intestine commotions and consequent chemical and meteoric changes, entirely fail of their intended purpose; and untenable as the notion may be, we can find none less so, than that the materials of pestilence are, as some have suggested, the larvae of myriads of insects, which descend as they traverse districts, and thus blast and blight the vegetable creation, while they bring disease and death upon man, and bird, and

beast.

Art. VI.-1. Trinitarian Bible Society. A Letter addressed to the Editor of "The Record" Newspaper, on the Proceedings at the Formation of the above Institution, as reported by Him. With a Postscript, referring to the Speeches on the same subject, at the Westminster Auxiliary Trinitarian Bible Society. By the Rev. John Scott, M.A. Hull. Second Edition. 8vo. pp. 16. Price 3d. London, 1832.

2. The Comparative Claims of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Trinitarian Bible Society calmly discussed. By the Rev. John King, M.A. Minister of Christ Church, Hull. 8vo. PP. 36. Price 1s. Hull, 1832.

3. An Examination of certain Passages of Scripture, which have been appealed to by some late Friends of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in Justification of their Separation from that Institution. By John Bacon, Esq. F.A.S. President of the Axminster Branch Bible Society. 8vo. pp. 40. Price 1s. London, 1832.

4. Two Letters addressed to a Friend in Wales, on some prevalent Misconceptions relative to the Constitution and Proceedings of the British and Foreign Bible Society. By C. S. Dudley. 8vo. pp. 18. Price 6d. London, 1832.

IT is not a little remarkable that, among the factions which divided the primitive Church at Corinth, there was one which professed to have Christ for its peculiar head. While not less animated by a sectarian spirit, than those who professed to follow Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, these Christians par excellence af fected a peculiar and exclusive attachment to the common Lord and Head of the Church, as the patron of their party; and each member, priding himself upon the arrogant assumption, exclaimed, 'I am of Christ.' So far from praising these exclusives for thus apparently disclaiming all inferior authority, the Apostle classes them with the other dividers of Christ; with good reason, since to use the name of the Divine Lord of the Church as the designation of a party, is more directly to divide Christ,' than to prefer Paul to Peter, or Calvin to Luther, among his apostles and servants. Nay, it is to derogate from the honour of their common Lord, as well as to impeach the fidelity of those who are not less truly His disciples, because they may class with the followers of a particular teacher. It is, in fact, so far as in us lies, to reduce the Master to a level with his servants.

It is easy to perceive this to be the effect of the use made of our Lord's name by the Papists. In the Romish hagiology, Christ appears but as one of an army of saints, the patron of an order, of a town, of a church, having his festivalday in the calendar, just as any other saint. And strange to say, of all the Romish orders, the most Anti-Christian is that which