whole of this interesting register, make us greatly regret that it should meet with so abrupt a close; and especially by so irreparable a loss. There is an essay, in vol. iii, on the subject of parochial schools, and the best means of instructing the children of the peasantry, that we should extremely like to see translated into English at the present moment; as containing the practical result of a wise and excellent system of regulations that have been long carried into effect, under the superintendence of the Swedish government, through every part of the country, and have been accompanied with the most beneficial consequences. Whilst upon this subject, we will just mention that count Schwerin, rector of Sala, has also just published, at Stockholm, a very excellent volume of "Lectures on Education and general Cultivation;" in which an attention to elemental to elemental learning among the poor, and especially such as is calculated to impress on the heart a deep reverence for religion, is duly inculcated. An anonymous writer has also given, at Stockholm, an interesting "Account of the Conversion of the Lappians or Laplanders:" and M. Ludeke, of Nodkoping, one of the chaplains to his majesty, has received orders to translate the national Catechism of Serebelius, into German, for the use of the Swedish schools in Pomerania; while Dr. Hackenburg, of Stockholm, has received similar orders respecting the Swedish Liturgy: it being the laudable intention of his majesty to assimilate, as nearly as possible, the national religion, national laws,

and national instruction, throughout the whole of his territories. Few public characters have been more entitled to the honour of a funeral oration than the late M. Rosenalder; and M. Adlerbath has been deservedly appointed to commemorate his virtues. He was the founder and perpetual president of the Stockholm academy of sciences; to the establishment of which he subscribed 8,338 crowns in the year 1777. To the university of Upsal he also made a present of his rich collection of medals, as well as of 600 crowns for the purchase of additional medals:-the university has since received the sumptuous gift of his select and curious library.

The AMERICAN States, still chiefly indebted for their theological readings to books exported from Great Britain, have offered us little, of prominent value. The Rev. W. Price, and Rev. Jos. Jones, of Wilmington, Delaware, are about to republish, in four quarto volumes, Dr. Gill's Exposition of the New Testament: a committee of the North Consociation of Hartford county has already published an abridgement of Henry on Prayer; and a great variety of religious journals have been lately started, the profits of which are to be appropriated to missionary purposes. Among these we may mention "The Connecticut Evangelical Magazine," published at Hartford ; "The Massachuset's Missionary Magazine," at Boston; "The Piscataqua Evangelical Ma gazine," at Portsmouth; "The Panoplist, or Christian Armoury," Charlestown.

CHAPTER

THE

HE medical and chirurgical contributions of Germany within the range of our present lucubrations are numerous, and several of them important. M. Soemmering, under the title of "Abbildungen des mens-chlichen HoerOrgans," has published a very accurate and valuable description of the human organs of hearing. The form is folio;-there is an accompaniment of five well executed plates, and the price is eleven florins. At Stutgard, M. Storr has offered some useful "Researches into the Nature and Treatment of Hypocondriasis "----- Untersuchen gen über den Begrif: and M. Elsaesser a neat Treatise on the Operation for the Cataract"--Uber die Operation des grauen Staars: in which, if there be little that is new, there is much that is well arranged, plain, simple, and perspicuous. We have met with a variety of anatomical works that are possessed of considerable merit: the chief are M. Hesselbach's, printed at Arnstad, and entitled Vollständige Daleitung zur Zergliederungkunde, "A complete Treatise on the Anatomy of the Human Body." The size is quarto, and the whole will probably extend to three volumes: at present we have only been able to obtain the first part of the first volume. In the octavo form, M. Oechy has published, at Prague, the first voume of a work of the same nature,

entitled "Bandes Menschenkoerpers:" this volume contains the branches of osteology and myology: they are correctly given, but not always with a sufficiency of synonyms, so that foreigners will occasionally be at a loss to follow the writer. Hufeland has advan ced to the fourth volume of his System der Praktischen Heilkunde-" System of Practical Medicine;" and has continued his "Theapeutics" to the close of the second section, which is an able treatise on cutaneous diseases and the effects of poisons. Wollkop has also completed the second volume of his Untersuchen über den Blutausfluss----" Observations on the Bloody Flux;" in which he discovers just as violent and indiscriminate an attachment to the Brunonian system as at first.

Upon the whole, however, the Brunonian system in Germany ap pears to have past its zenith; and, if we mistake not, Dr. Gall's Cranioscopy, which is of still later date, is also upon the decline. The Germans embrace the crudest fancies and speculations of literature, with a heat that renders it impossible for them to support long-it is a fever of the ephemeral type, and soon spends itself. Dr. Gall's friends still flatter him that he is possessed of all the popularity of Lavater; but we find him exposed to both solid and satiric attacks in such works as Bartell's "Bemer.

kungen,"

kungen," and the anonymous publications of "Antigall;" Antigall;" Dars tellung und Beleuchtung des Gallschen Systems-" Exposition and Illustration of the Gallian System;" and Reisen einer Schädeliehrers "Travels of a Craniologist." The philosopher opened his lectures at Marburg in August last, but had few pupils; from Marburg he travelled to Heidelburg, to engage in public debate with his opponent Scherman, yet he was here less successful than at Marburg.

M. Link of Leipsic has made a valuable present to the public in his Versuch einer Geschichte und Physiologie" Dissertation on on Anid History and Physiology." It extends to two volumes Svo, of which the firs is appropriated to the general physiology of animals, their exterior anatomy, powers, and conformation;-the second, to their particular physiology, interior conformation, and the structure and functions of the viscera. M. Doerner, under the title of "Neue Galvanische Versuche," has published at Tubingen a German version of Nysten's Galvanic Experiments on the Muscle of Man, and her warm-blooded Animals. M. Hei demann has presented the first volume of his Vilstandige Theorie, &c.-"Compic Theory of Galvanic Electricny.' M. Hersch of Barenth, and Dr. Fischer of Heldbourghausen, have both translated, in separate works, Leroy's valuable Treatise on Maternal Medicine, or the means of bringing up and preserving the health of children. The tide of the first version is Hygea als Mütter; of the second, Heilkunde für Mütter.

pushed to an unnecessary extent in many parts of the continent-of these the chief are, Medicinische Merwürdigkeiten für CriminalRichter, Aerzte, und Prediger“Medical Memorabilia, for the Use of Judges, Physicians, and Clergymen," and the Allgemeines Archiv für die Gesundheit's Polizei" General Repository for Medical Police."

In FRANCE, we notice one work of something of the same nature, but carried to a still greater extreme: it is by M. Eusebius Salverte, and is entitled Des Rap, ports de la Médicine avec la Politique" On the Connection of Medicine with Political Science :" in which the ingenious author en deavours to prove that every class and order of society ought to be in some measure acquainted with the general theory of medicine, as the best mean of precluding them from myriads of evils, in body, mind, and imagination, to which they are perpetually exposed. There is a degree of sophistry pervading this work which we believe to have been undesigned on the part of the writer, but which is not a whit less sophistry on this account. have not the shadow of a doubt that the popular study of medicine would produce, and has actually produced, more general mischief than a total ignorance of the science would have done among the people at large. Here, as in every other case, "a little learning is a dangerous thing" and for one poor sufferer who is amended by the kind officiousness of lady-doctors at their country-seats, it would not be difficult to prove that a dozen are marred.

We

-Diseased

Diseased Persons," we have met with a collection of memoirs of some importance, which have obtained prizes from the medical society at Brussels, in answer to the following questions proposed by the society for examination: "Does the Night possess any Influence over Persons who are Ill? Are there Diseases in which this Influence is more or less apparent? What is the Physical Cause of such Influence ?" The memoirs here published are six in number: the prize proposed was a gold Napoleon medal, of the value of 200 franks. Fourteen candidates returned essays; but though the prize was unanimously adjudged to M. de la Prade, physician to the civil and military hospital at Montbrison, there were five others conceived to be so essentially meritorious, that the adjudicators resolved upon rewarding the authors with two secondary and three accessory prizes, and of publishing the essays conjointly. The whole of these memoirists answer the first question affirmatively; and of course the next subject of enquiry is into the cause of the influence in question: M. Prade, and M. Rymone, and in truth most of the writers, agree in ascribing a directly stimulating effect to light, and a directly sedative effect to darkness; but, with respect to the first observation, it should be remarked that strong light always exhausts, and probably from the phosoxygen hereby produced, or the abstraction of oxygen from the body by its peculiar affinity for light; and next, if mere darkness produce a directly opposite or sedative effect, darkness must itself be a distinct agent, a substance sui generis, a position which, though it have been sometimes advanced with respect ૐ

to cold, we should scarcely conceive any modern chemist would maintain with respect to darkness. M. Murat, physician at Montpelier, another and one of the best inform ed and most ingenious of the candidates, ascribes the common effects perceived during the darkness of night to a different cause, and conceives that, according to the laws of the animal economy, a series or rotation of changes takes place in the human body in the course of every day: these he regards as consisting of four and he hence attempts to account for the feverish state which is always induced towards evening; as he does also, from combining this circumstance with the common causes and phænomena of fever in general, for the species of fever which is more peculiarly the subject of sensation. Upon the whole, however, the inquiry is still left very considerably in the dark: for while it is yet doubt. ful whether any such diurnal rotation of temperament take place in the constitution, even admitting with M. Murat that it does, we have not the smallest glimpse to instruct us as to the cause of such rotation: whether it be owing to solar influence, to the influence of light generally, or to any other agency.

Melanges de Physiologie, de Physique, et de Chemie, &C.... "Miscellanies of Physiology, Phy. sics, Chemistry, &c., by Claude Roucher de Ratle," 2 vois. 8vo. These miscellanies are a disgrace to the Paris press: the author outMesmer's Mesmer himself, and supposes that by pressing his lower ribs with his fingers, and intensely thinking of a person who may be either present or absent, provided the absence do not exceed the limit of three hundred feet, he will in

stantly

stantly become acquainted with the whole train of thoughts, and the profoundest secrets that occupy the mind of such person; unless indeed such person himself should be so deeply initiated into the arcana of this newly discovered science of sympathy, as to apply his hand, at the same time, to the back part of his head, for the express purpose of breaking the chain of intelligencial agency-a charm which is sure to succeed, and the only charm that can prevent the unquestionable communication of his ideas. Such is the trash which in the present instance is suffered to fill two octavo volumes, and is dignified by the appellation of phy.iology, physics, and chemistry!! Nouveaux Elemens de la Science de l'Homme---"New Elements of the Science of Man:" by P. J. Barthez, physician to the emperor and king. The author commences well, and presents the reader with some preliminary observations on the principles of life and motion. But he seems, soon, to grow weary of his task, and leaves it incomplete. He is a materialist; but does not give us any specific reason why vital motion may not continue for ever, resolving the whole, which is by far the easiest way of settling the enquiry, into a grand, universal, and primordial law, which man is as much compelled to obey as he is every other law of nature. Yet death is only a sleep-and as sleep is often pleasant, so death itself may be often pleasant also. To which we would add, that as sleep is also sometimes unpleasant, so death perhaps may sometimes prove a lile pleasant as well.

Considerations sur les Etres Organisés" Observations on Organised Beings" by J. C. Delametherie, 2 vols. 8vo. This work

is designed, first, to prove the re semblance which subsists in the general physiology of animals and vegetables; next, to offer a new methodical classification; and lastly, to establish the galvanic fluid as the true source and medium of nervous action, and as being secreted for this very pur pose by the brain. We do not approve of the new classification here presented to us we cannot suffer vegetables to enter into the chain of sentient beings-though we are ready to admit of a great and wonderful similarity of phenomena in their respective structures. In re gard to the identity of the galvanic and nervous fluids, the experiments here referred to are by no means sufficient to convince us. The idea has of late years been started by many physiologists, both of our own country and of the continent, but we have hitherto acquired nothing like certainty. This work nevertheless will by no means detract from M. Delametherie's established reputation: it is not always that he has intermixed his fanciful conjectures with so much legiti mate reasoning, and so many fair appeals to physical and established facts.

On the subject of natural history in a more detailed form, we have to notice M. Thomas's Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire Naturelle des Sangsues,---" Dissertations on the Natural History of Leeches ;" in which the author shews himself to have been an attentive observer of the economy of this curious worm, and has given a variety of useful regulations for its preservation in a state of confinement. In a series of instructive letters M. Angeleny has given his own method, from long experience, well worth attending to, of rearing the silk

worm,