PART SECOND. Bibliographical Notices. ART. I.-Memoir on the Field Carriage of Sick and Wounded Soldiers in the Bengal Army. By J. S. LOGIN, M.D., Surgeon to the British Residency at Lucknow, Superintendent of H. M. the King of Oude's Hospital, late Surgeon to the Commander-in-Chief in India, &c. &c. Printed at H. M. the King of Oude's Lithographic Press. With coloured drawings.-Lucknow, 1844. pp. 36. THE object of this Memoir is to bring under the notice of the authorities in India a new litter for the transport of sick and wounded soldiers, invented by the author. The objections to the doolie at present in use in the Bengal army are pointed out by Dr. Login to be;-the large number of bearers required-the establishment for an European corps of 1000 men being 630-the consequent expense, and the inconvenience of encumbering the army with followers; the inapplicability of the doolie to mountain passes, or to uneven ground; its great bulk; the delay to which this necessarily gives rise in defiling through a narrow pass, or crossing a river in boats; the necessity for having bearers accustomed to the work these, by existing arrangements, are not under strict discipline as soldiers, and frequently desert at times when their services are most required. Dr. Login proposes to substitute for the doolie a litter constructed of bamboo, of which he has given several drawings in the Memoir. The advantages it possesses over the common doolie are, that it is little more than half the weight; that it forms an hospital cot, if required; that it can be carried by two men instead of four, or by camels, mules, elephants, ponies, &c., or on carts; when not in use it can be packed up in a small space and carried till required, and in this form could be transported much more rapidly through passes or across rivers. Dr. Login also proposes that corps of hospital Lascars should be raised to carry these litters, instead of hired doolie-bearers, and who might be employed, when in cantonments, as hospital orderlies and servants, and be required to furnish sentries for the hospital. This arrangement would be productive of saving, compared with the present system, when a regiment took the field; but as this is the exception, and as regiments in India change their quarters, under ordinary circumstances, only once in three years, the expense of keeping up these corps when in cantonments will prove, we fear, a fatal objection. There can be no doubt, however, that such an establishment would be attended with many advantages. The subject of the transport of sick and wounded soldiers is one of XLIII.-XXII. 15 very great importance in India; and at the present time, when it is requisite to assemble such armies as that of the Sutlej, any arrangement for reducing the number of camp followers is deserving of consideration, especially when it promises at the same time to prove beneficial to the soldier. Dr. Login is entitled to great praise for having, in the midst of his other duties, devoted to it so much time and attention. The arguments he has advanced in favour of the proposed system are such as to establish a clear case for affording it a fair trial; and we trust the military authorities in India will give it one on an extensive scale, and under his superintendence. ART. II.-Lettre sur la Syphilis ou Vues Nouvelles sur la Nature, et le Traitement de la Maladie Vénérienne. Par F. S. RATIER.—Paris, 1846. New Views of the Nature and Treatment of Syphilis. By F. S. RATIER. -Paris, 1846. 8vo, pp. 100. WE cannot discover in this brochure of M. Ratier that the contents in any way correspond with the title. Our author admits one species of primary sore, and one variety of constitutional disease only (the papular eruption) as characteristic of syphilis properly so called. These are considered specific, and the treatment recommended is that which English surgeons are commonly in the habit of employing. Other symptoms the result of sexual intercourse, as the various forms of gonorrhoea, balanitis, vegetations, bubos, &c. &c., are due to a variety of causes, but are not purely specific, nor is the treatment suited to the first forms at all applicable to the second. In all this there is nothing to detain us. are sorry we cannot extract from M. Ratier's letter anything either in reference to the pathology or treatment of venereal diseases new or useful to the English reader. We ART. III.-Collectanea Medico-Chirurgica; or, Cullings from the Case-Book of a General Practitioner in Medicine, Surgery, and Midwifery. By W. MACLURE, Esq., Surgeon, &c. &c. &c.-London, 1845. 8vo, pp. 192. THIS Collection of cases, the author in his preface informs us, is given to the public with a view "in some degree to exhibit the nature and extent of the labours of the general practitioner," and to show the injustice, as Mr. Maclure believes, "of the recent attempts of the Council of the College of Surgeons of England to degrade him" [the general practitioner] "below his recent level." The author makes the singular announcement, that in his miscellaneous volumes, he does not consider it necessary to "load his pages and swell the size of his book" with the "uninteresting details" of ordinary practice, "such as" the protean forms of gastric and hepatic derangements, of gout and rheumatism, of the operation for hernia, stone, tumours, &c. ; yet these and the other diseases enumerated by Mr. Maclure (p. vi) are at once the most important and the most common, and in regard to which no man would consider " details," if judiciously selected and stated, as "uninteresting" or unneeded. The volume is multifarious in its nature. One or two of the subjects discussed have little bearing on practical medicine, and others have nothing very unusual to recommend them. There is one case, however, extremely creditable to Mr. Maclure's surgical management. It is headed "Partial obliteration of the urethra cured by the caustic potash ;" and although it has been already elsewhere published, a slight recapitulation of some points in the treatment may here be given. The patient when he came under the author's care, had been for sixteen years a sufferer from a fistulous aperture in the perineum, through which his urine was discharged instead of by the urethra. The disease was originally caused by chancrous sores which spread downwards from the groin. The orifice of the fistula, with its glistening lining membrane, was situated rather less than half the distance between the scrotum and anus. A probe could be introduced by the fistula backwards into the bladder, but not forward to the glans penis, being stopped by a cul-de-sac, in which the anterior portion of the canal terminated. The obstruction was situated five or six inches from the orifice of the urethra, and seemed to occupy an inch and a half of the canal. The treatment consisted in the application of an armed bougie, which was first introduced on the 15th of November, 1822. On the 17th of January, 1823, a catheter could be passed into the bladder. On the 20th, the urine was withdrawn by means of a gumcatheter, introduced along the urethra, instead of flowing by the fistula. On the 26th of February, the patient regained the natural use of the canal. There are several other papers of some interest, though few of them are sufficiently so to justify their being resuscitated from the pages of the journals in which they originally appeared. ART. IV.-An Atlas of Anatomical Plates of the Human Body, accompanied with Descriptions in Hindustani. By FRED. G. MOUATT, M.D., assisted by MOOUSHI NUSSEERUDIN AHMUD.—Calcutta, 1846. Fol. It gives us much pleasure to notice this book, which is printed in Hindustani and edited by Dr. Mouatt. This attempt to diffuse the medical knowledge of the West amongst the inhabitants of the East must meet with the warmest approbation not only of us, who watch over and hail with pleasure the progress of medical knowledge-not only of all wellwishers for the improvement of the Hindoo, but of all philanthropists. This publication is addressed to the military class of the College of Calcutta, and is designed to remove, through the education of the native doctors, so to speak, the ignorance and prejudice of the people. Hitherto Europeans have, for the most part, given their translations of medical works in characters that were not understood by the lower grades; but the editor of the present work has attempted to teach the people by publishing in a language that is understood by them; therefore, the book has been printed in Urdu, "the vernacular language of the people, the vulgar mother-tongue of the mass." From the want of books for the native students in the college, Dr. Mouatt and others have been led to undertake the labour of compiling and translating the following works: a Manual of Anatomy and Physiology, one of Surgery, one of Practice of Medicine and Midwifery, and one of Materia Medica. The work on anatomy and physiology has been undertaken by Dr. Mouatt, who is assisted by a native, Mooushi Nusseerudin Ahmud. It will consist of an atlas of plates, with accompanying description, which will be followed by a manual of anatomy and physiology; the first part of the Atlas now sent to us from Calcutta, contains drawings of the bones, which are copied from Cheselden's very excellent plates. In the other parts-in all five-it is proposed to give the vessels, the nervous system, the viscera, and organs of sense. There is not any mention made in the preface of illustrations of the muscular system, and the ligaments joining the hard parts of the skeleton. Surely this omission must be from oversight; for what kind of knowledge can be gained of the vessels or nerves without a previous acquaintance with the muscles? Besides the utility of these works to the native student in medicine, their appearance will be scarcely less beneficial to the junior members of the medical staff in service in India; and we trust that the medical officers of the East India Company's service will use them as a means of fami liarizing themselves with the language of the Sepoy committed to their charge. We feel strongly the truth of the remark of the editor, that “no surgeon in charge of a jail or a regiment can be perfectly efficient, or discharge his duties with credit to himself and benefit to his patients, who is entirely ignorant of their tongue, and incapable himself of ascertaining the exact nature and extent of their complaints." It is because we wish well to this undertaking in the East that we would venture to suggest to Dr. Mouatt the necessity that there will be for his most unremitting attention to the execution of the illustrations. In the progress of a work the artist is so prone, as the novelty wears off, to relax in the ardour necessary to the perfection of the plates. Indeed it is because we notice now some slight disposition to omit the clearness and precision so remarkable in Cheselden's plates that we are induced to offer these remarks. To Dr. Mouatt's name we shall look for security for the fulfilment of the terms of the contract; and we are sure Dr. Mouatt is more desirous of reputation than of the éclat of having produced a book. By Sir JAMES CLARK, Bart., ART V.-The Sanative Influence of Climate. THE almost unexampled event of a genuine medical work-neither a school-book nor a book written expressly for the public--coming to a fourth edition, is assuredly a striking indication of its character and the estimation in which it is held, and may well justify our dismissing it with brief notice. In our number for July, 1841 (Vol. XII, p. 160), we gave an outline of the contents of the Third Edition, and an analysis of its principal sections. The present edition is substantially the same work, the former plan being preserved; but the book is much enlarged by the addition of a great deal of new matter of importance, and is moreover much improved by alterations and emendations in every chapter. Among the improvements we may mention new articles on Bournemouth on our south coast, Egypt, and various places in the southern hemisphere; great additions to the article on Madeira; and an entire remodelling of the meteorological tables-now the most extensive and accurate series which have ever been constructed. Sir James, with characteristic modesty, tells us, in his preface, that "with all the improvements which he has been able to effect in it, the work is still to be regarded only as an essay which future and more extended observations will be required to perfect." WE venture to express our belief that it is as complete now as the present state of our knowledge admits of its being made. He adds, that "although he has seen no reason to change his opinions on the characters of the different climates treated of, yet that the information he has continued to receive from others, added to his own increased experience, has enabled him, with more confidence and precision, to lay down rules respecting the adaptation of certain climates to the cure of particular diseases." This is the natural and necessary result of time; and we hope the author may yet find leisure enough to give us yet more, and more complete, editions; but as Sir James has already, we believe, got somewhat beyond the mezzo del cammin, and is, moreover, one of the busiest of doctors, we may reasonably enough presume that the work has at length received the author's last touches, and will go down to posterity in its present form-one of the most original and most classical productions of the medical press of our time. It is, indeed, in every way a classical work; and as it is the result of long and accurate observation and experience, and has no connexion with our transitory opinions or professional fashions, it stands a fair chance of being one of the few medical books of the present day which will be familiar to the readers and practitioners of other days. For ourselves, we owe to the work a debt of especial gratitude, as having, in its earliest form of "Notes," full five-and-twenty years ago, directed our attention to the curative influences of Nature in chronic diseases, and thus led us to the adoption of views and plans of treatment, which have been to ourselves the source of infinite gratification, and, through us, may-we would fain hope-be of some slight benefit to the profession and the public. Of the rational system of treating diseases, in accordance with Nature not in opposition to her, the author of this volume has always been the enlightened and consistent advocate; and we believe that for the improvod plan of management in many chronic diseases, now more prevalent in this country than formerly, the profession is not a little indebted to his writings and his example. We need scarcely add any formal opinion of the volume before us. There are few whom its perusal will not both gratify and instruct. To all who desiderate a knowledge of the sanative influence of climate, both at home and abroad, it is indispensable. ART. VI.--On the Temperature of the Earth and Sea, in reference to the Theory of Central Heat: a Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution. By ALFRED S. TAYLOR, F.R.S., &c.-London, 1846. 8vo, pp. 32. THIS is an excellent Lecture on a very interesting point of scientific inquiry. It contains all the knowledge we possess on the subject of which it treats, and this knowledge disposed clearly and in an agreeable form. We think there are few readers whom it will not interest, and not many whom it will not instruct. |