dical practitioner, who will be able to open shop in New Bridge Street, Blackfriars, under the very nose of the worshipfuls, and prescribe and dispense medicine without let or hindrance! But Sir James Graham tells us there is to be a penalty on unlicensed practitioners. It is certainly an Irish one. Such practitioners are not to be rewarded for their ignorance or want of diploma! They are not to be promoted to places of rank or emolument. They will not be eligible (they are not so now) to appointments in Hospitals, the Army, the Navy, &c. Why no. They would take good care to decline such appointments were they offered to them. They covet no such theatres for the display of their abilities. They will be perfectly content with the liberty of starting in every street of the metropolis, or of provincial towns, to practise medicine, surgery, midwifery, and pharmacy, quietly, legally, and lucratively, without any disturbance from the beadles of a College, or the solicitors of a trading company. The Home Secretary tells us that the great principle of his Bill is to encourage rather than repress-to offer rewards for knowledge rather than impose penalties on ignorance. Very fine words; but the effect will be just the reverse. The working of the Bill will tend to foster ignorance and effronteryto depress skill, learning, and science. It is hesitatingly proposed to deprive the unregistered practitioner of the power of recovering charges in a court of law. What cares the quack or the ignoramus for this? Do we ever see the Charlatan go to law for the recovery of his medical debts? Never. Nor is this boon of any use to the regular practitioner. He ought never to go to law with his patient. He will lose ten times more than he will gain by such a procedure. And, after all, can any physician in Great Britain recover a fee? Not one; and physicians thrive as well as other classes of their brethren. The grand feature, or principle, if you will, of this Reform Bill is, to give every man the free and legal power to practise medicine, in its most comprehensive sense, whether qualified or not-and, at the same time, offer to the public full scope and liberty to employ the unlicensed practitioner, if it pleases, in preference to the qualified and registered. It is very true that the public cannot be prohibited from consulting quacks and risking their lives; but this is no reason why quackery should be encouraged by Government, and all restraint on its operations taken off. We cannot prevent a man from purchasing poison and destroying his own life by it; but we can punish a man for vending that poison incautiously, and thus facilitating the act of suicide. This is the plague-spot on the new Bill; for the centralization of power in the COUNCIL of HEALTH, and the equalization of education, fees, and rights of the different colleges, are decided improvements on the old and heterogeneous system of legislation. "Adversity makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows." It is not a little curious to observe that the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries, which has been nick-named, scorned, and scandalized for twenty years past by the ultra-reformers, has, all at once, found favour in the sight of their enemies, who have suddenly discovered virtues and merits in the " Whags of Rhubarb Hall," which never radiated on their optics till the new Reform Bill made its appearance!! The said Reformers see at last that the "old hags" have done great good in their day, and that they are now most shamefully treated by the Government. They, therefore, hold out the hand of good-fellowship to the "Weird Sisters" of Blackfriars, and offer to stand by them till the death, in resistance to that odious and cruel tyrant—the GRÆME MACBETH! So then, the Medical Agitators in this Country have had little more success than the Repeal Agitators in the Green Isle. The latter had got a comfortable "Locus PENITENTIÆ" on the banks of the Liffey, while the former are granted a TEMPUS PENITENTIE of some ten or twelve months, during which they may chew the cud of disappointment at leisure! After a twenty years' struggle for a representative, or rather a fœderal government—a great tripartite faculty a triple-headed Cerberus to watch the interests of the three branches of the profession-we are to have a great hydra-headed monster, appointed, not elected and armed with powers over which we shall have no control. We were dissatisfied with King LoG-and now we shall have King STORK! When we cast a retrospective glance at the juvenile days of Medical Reform, and remember the thrilling harangues of a Lawrence and a Wakley in Freemasons' Hall, we cannot contemplate the present scene-the sad result of all their exertions, without exclaiming in the words of the immortal Bard though far away Each flower that hail'd the dawning of the day, With many a tear her aged eyes shall fill, And mourn their falsehood, though she love them still! It is clear that the HOME SECRETARY has based his Medical Reform Bill on the new system in Hanwell, where all pains and penalties are abolished, and every thing is to be done by coaxing and kindness. He, no doubt, views quackery itself as a species of refined philanthropy, where the good of the public -the salus populi-is alone considered, and no regard paid to private pelf. Who would be so ungenerous as to suppose that Morrison recommended his pills for any other purpose than to save the lives of thousands, and that without the slightest view towards the accumulation of wealth? Under the new system the Morrisons and the Longs will be no longer harassed by law-suits or trials at the Old Bailey. The prospect of a professorship in one of the colleges or hospitals will be quite sufficient to discourage or suppress the most inveterate quackery! That one supreme or ruling Body should exist in the metropolis for regulating the affairs of the profession, and equalizing the various licensing colleges and corporations throughout the empire, no reasonable man can deny; but the composition of that Council requires great care. The ex officio members are, doubtless, good men, but we fear that interest more than merit will operate in the appointments by the Crown. And yet a few strokes of the pen-one or two clauses added-and two or three struck out, might render this stigmatized Bill as good as we can, under all circumstances, hope to obtain. In the words of Goldsmith, it might be said of this enactment, that "It has but one fault-but that is a thumper." A clause rendering the registry (after proper examination) imperative, not optional and imposing a penalty on all those who practise without that registration, would make the Bill very useful. With such clause the mock incentives of hospitals, public appointments, &c. &c. may be struck out, or left to find their own level, among clashing interests and the struggles of competition. INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY ON DISEASE. Dr. Rumsey, of Henley-on-Thames, has called the attention of the profession [Prov. Med. Journal] to the peculiar salubrity of BEACONSFIELD, near High Wycomb, Bucks, which, if his representation be correct, would appear likely to prove the Montpellier of England. Dr. R. is of opinion that a "noxious and unsuspected element lurks in our soil," whose solution in the waters poisons the blood, and affects various organs of the body. He thinks that this poison prevails much more in some places than in others. Our author has long believed that BEACONSFIELD is distinguished for the salubrity of its air and water far beyond other neighbouring towns and villages. Yet the elevation is not great the soil is none of the driest-and the temperature of the air is far from warm. Nevertheless, this hill is exempt from several diseases that prevail in other and apparently more favoured localities. "In the numerous surrounding towns, which are for the most part situated in vallies, some wide and open, others comparatively narrow and contracted, bordered by hills of chalk, with superincumbent gravel, clay, or sand, yet of drier soil and houses than Beaconsfield, I have met with much more articular and glandular disease. More persons by far are the victims of pulmonary consumption; the stiff and useless joint, and cripple, are seen with much more frequency; the goitre is met with at every town; calculus of the bladder has been seen in most, if not in all of the other towns and villages of the neighbourhood, and that of the kidney is very common; whereas, the former of these, calculus of the bladder, I have every reason to believe, from the authentic source of my father's long and extensive experience in this vicinity, and my own opportunities of observation, has not been seen at Beaconsfield in a single instance for more than half a century, and possibly never to have arisen there, and the latter gravel, is only exhibited by a rare exception in the corpulent, the bedridden, and the sufferer with disorganized kidney. "The goitre itself may be said to be unknown in this town, though not three miles from one of its favourite localities, and absolutely surrounded by districts fruitful in its production. “Other painful affections, incident to the young female, yield to the same law of comparative exemption in this favoured elevation, and my conjecture is, that these advantages do not complete the whole catalogue which belong to this town's distinguished geological position." "I have witnessed the spontaneous cure of diseases on a change of abode to this hill, which usually, under other circumstances, make a very different progress. Dysmenorrhoea has been removed; bronchocele has disappeared; attacks of gravel have permanently and spontaneously ceased; and, in one instance, the gradual, yet speedy, total and permanent cessation to cough up chalk stones, followed a residence at Beaconsfield, the native and previous abode of the patient having been one of the surrounding localities, more fertile in disease." Medical topography is an interesting and valuable study. It is a pity that such investigations are not more frequently pursued than they are. Dr. Rumsey has related some curious cases illustrating the prophylactic and sanative influence of Beaconsfield, which we recommend to the attention of our medical brethren in that vicinity. KINGDOM OF Shoa. It appears that England has an embassy at the capital of this small kingdom in Abyssinia, situated near the Straits of Babel-Mandel, and whose medical topography has been drawn up and published by the Surgeon to the Embassy, Rupert Kirk, Esq. in the Bombay Medical and Physical Transactions. The territory lies between eight and ten degrees of North latitude, and 38 to 40 East longitude. It consists of two table-lands-the lower, 2500 feet above the level of the sea-and the upper rising from eight to ten thousand feet. The climate of this region is highly-favoured. ANKOBER is the capital-the residence of the Embassy-and containing some ten or twelve thousand inhabitants. The upper plain possesses a pure and buoyant air, and though close to the Equator, the tropical temperature is greatly reduced by the elevation of the soil. The thermometer ranges from 70 to 75 in the day, while the nights are chilly, and thin pellicles of ice are occasionally seen in the colder months. The mean annual temperature of Ankober is 55—three degrees lower than that of the Neilgherries on the coast of Malabar. " Perhaps there is no kingdom which possesses a greater variety of climate within its limits than Shoa. Leaving the parched plains of the Adiel on which is felt the fierce heat of tropical Africa, a journey of eight miles brings the traveller to Farri, 3000 feet above the sea, and possessing the genial warmth of an Indian province; proceeding onwards twelve miles, he reaches Alioamba, which with an elevation of 5000 feet, enjoys a mild, Italian sky; from whence ascending the Ankober mountain, a ride of but five miles, he gains a height of 8,000 feet, and a climate only to be compared to an English spring, whose coldness may be judged from the fact, that fires are needed in the house morning and evening throughout the year.' This being the case, we should not be surprised to find Shoa become a SANATORIUM for our tropical invalids, dividing the spoil with Neilgherry and the Himalayas. The population of Shoa is calculated at about two and a half millions, of whom one million may be considered as Abyssinian Christiansthe others are chiefly Mahomedan. The Christians are tall, stout, and wellformed, and varying in height from 5 feet 7, to 5 feet 9 inches-some of them are upwards of six feet. Their colour varies from brownish olive to the clear black of the Negro. The most common colour, however, is a coppery brown, with a tinge of black. The food of the Abyssinians is chiefly farinaceous, and the meals, as in India, taken about sun-rise and sun-set. Their drink is a kind of mead, prepared from honey and corn, and also tulla or beer brewed from barley. It appears that these people are subject to almost as many diseases as our polished and civilized nations, as the list of maladies, for which Mr. Kirk was consulted, will shew. Three hundred and seventeen syphilitic cases, among others, were treated by our author! The tænia solium is also very prevalent. Very few of the natives are free from it. They attribute it to the eating of brindo, or raw flesh. Fortunately the flowers of the Kosse, a tree common in Abyssinia, are an effectual remedy for the worm. It is taken regularly every two months by the inhabitants. Its operation often produces prolapsus ani-being a drastic purgative. Scrofula is very common among the females, as is also bronchocele;-fever, though formidable, is chiefly prevalent among the low and fertile valleys, where water is abundant. Epilepsy, and other nervous affections, are sufficiently common. There are no professed doctors-medicine being strictly domestic. All ranks attempt to secure themselves against diseases by amulets or charms-and these are probably as successful as the articles in the family medicine-chest among ourselves! "Should a person be attacked with fever, the head of a red cock is sometimes cut off, with certain rites and formalities, and its blood is sprinkled on a road, when they believe that the disease will be transferred to the first person who crosses the infected spot." This is a very generous and disinterested practice! Surgery is on pretty much the same level as physic, which is not saying much for that science. AMERICAN NOTES. Many persons in this country are calling on the Legislature to put down quackery by law. Whether law could succeed in doing so, we will not stop to ask. The lawgivers of Alabama once thought it would, so they went to work in earnest. Their success would not seem to be encouraging, for we read in a Journal of the West: "Alabama has long had a law denying to those who practise medicine without a diploma or a license, the benefit of her courts in the collection of their debts. We do not suppose it has done any more good in this than in other states; but still it served as a theoretical expression in favor of science. Lately, however, it has been so modified as not to interfere with any persons' who practise on the botanical system of doctor S. Thompson;' provided, nevertheless, that they 'do not bleed, apply a blister of Spanish flies, administer calomel or any of the mercurial preparations, antimony, arsenic, tartar-emetic, opium, or laudanum !' It would be difficult to say whether doctor Thompson's patent, or this law, is the more precious specimen of empyricism. It is marvellous, that a people so enlightened as those of Alabama, should allow their statute book to be made ridiculous by such nonsense." It is pretty clear that the enlightened folks of Alabama got sick of being doctored only by the faculty. They tried it, but it did not suit them, and so Doctor Thompson turning up with his botanical system, they made an exception in favour of him. Bye and bye Dr. Thompson and the botanical system, too, will be found or fancied a delusion, and some one else with a wet system, or a dry system, or some system of some sort, will be taken up in his turn. And this is the history of the human mind, whether in the old world or in the new, in the aristocratic halls of London or the forests of the bowie country. When legislators can be found who are not to be caught by quackery or quacks, then we may think of law, but not before. MESMERISM IN THE FAR WEST. We all know how very scientific men have taken up Mesmerism here. This grand discovery has been accepted by the titled and the scientific, and it cannot be said that a deaf ear has been turned to its marvellous tales by the choice spirits of the land. The Marquis of Anglesea has smiled upon it, Doctor Elliotson has lectured on it, and half the aristocracy have half believed it. We are not then altogether a nation of infidels, and faith has a resting-place amongst us. But in Alabama, Mesmerism has grown downright vulgar. It is positively low. "Alabama is not more thoroughly overrun with the disciples of doctor Thompson, than those of Dr. Mesmer. Anxious to have the phenomena of Mesmerism subjected to a rigid examination, the true separated from the false, and the public mind kept in a healthy condition in reference to both, we cannot but regret to see one travelling mountebank after another, traversing the southwest, for the purpose of extracting money from those who are credulous enough to believe, that he can do any thing in which men of sense will confide. It is truly unfortunate for Mesmerism that it should have fallen into such hands. Things are coming to that kind of pass, that we shall soon not be able to distinguish the pass of an impostor from the pass of a scientific Mesmerizer, and, in discouragement, pass the whole by; not even making it a pastime of a passable kind, as it was in days past; and when this happens, there is great danger that it will be passed over, and fall into a somnambulic state, from which the passes of the most scientific hand may not awaken it, till the remembrance of what is now doing to degrade it has past away." We do not know if all these not very passable puns are meant for Mesmerism or the Mesmerizers. But however that may be, one does not like to see a science so exalted get into such low hands. We dare say the fellows Mesmerize for No. LXXXII. Q Q |