sagacity, it is well calculated to fulfil the object for which it has been written. We are not sure but its very inferiority to Dr. Walshe's treatise may be a cause of its greater usefulness. There is a numerous class of students to whom the aphoristic conciseness of Dr. Walshe will be much less welcome, and even less intelligible, than the plain continuous narrative style and frequent repetitions of Dr. Hughes. And the same remark applies to the arrangement of the subjects adopted by the two authors. Dr. Walshe's plan is unquestionably much more philosophical, and is even clearer and more practical than that of Dr. Hughes; and yet this very plan,-involving as it does a greater subdivision of subjects, and thus rendering it necessary, in the working out of any one point, to refer to three or four different parts of the volume, -is likely to be a cause of puzzle and annoyance to some readers. We are therefore pleased to think that by the publication of Dr. Hughes's volume, this class of students will be conciliated, and the progress of auscultation practically extended. To the student of auscultation we would indeed say, possess yourself of both works-both will be found useful, neither superfluous. It is but justice to Dr. Hughes to add, that his work includes the subject of diseases of the heart, while Dr. Walshe's is confined to that of diseases of the lungs. Dr. Hughes's book is written with great modesty, and everywhere exhibits a becoming distrust of his own powers, and the powers of his art. He gives ample evidence of possessing that amount of knowledge which can afford to confess its deficiencies.

ART. XI.-The History of the Middlesex Hospital during the first Century of it existence. By ERASMUS WILSON, F.R.S.

This is a work most creditable to the author. It is almost unique of its kind; at least we have never seen any account of a British hospital at all to be compared with it in fulness and accuracy of detail. If in addition to the economical history, Mr. Wilson could have given us the medical history of the hospital-that is, a complete report of the diseases admitted, with their events, &c., during the same period, he would have left us nothing to desire. We entirely assent to the author's estimate of the probable influence of the present work on those into whose hands it may fall.

"Certainly, if a picture of the admirable management of a truly benovolent institution be calculated to make an impression upon the human mind,—if the testimony of an upright and conscientious spirit of action have any weight with the charitable and the humane, the conduct of the Governors of the Middlesex Hospital, during a century of usefulness, cannot be otherwise than favorably estimated." (p. x.)

ART. XII.-Elementa Physiologia specialis Corporis Humani. Auctore AUGUSTO ARNOLDO SEBASTIAN, Ordinis Leonis Neerlandici Equite, &c. Editio altera. Groninga, 1842. pp. 356.

The plan

THIS work is dedicated to his class by Professor Sebastian. he has adopted is on the model of the older writers. The work is divided into numbered aphorisms, each concisely stating a fact, or a principle. There is nothing original in the work. It is a good compendium, and a work suitable to students.

ART. XIII.—An Inaugural Address, delivered at the Opening of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital Museum, Sept. 10, 1845. By J. C. CROSSE, M.D., F.R.S., the Senior Surgeon to the Hospital. Norwich, 1845. Svo, pp. 28.

We can pay this little book no higher compliment than to say, it is a fitting memorial of the event it celebrates. Its author is one of the principal founders of the splendid Institution which now enriches and adorns the Medical School at Norwich; and the character of this Address proves that its literary inauguration could not have been intrusted to an abler pen. Dr. Crosse gives a delightful account of the many great men of our profession who have illustrated Norwich, including the names of Kaye or Caius, Sir Thomas Browne, Howman, Benjamin Gooch, William Donne, Alderson, Yelloly, Wright, Rigby, Martineau, and Dalrymple-the last alone surviving. We doubt not that those who heard this eloquent Address, felt that there were yet giants in the land; and all who know Dr. Crosse's writings are aware that the future historian of Norwich will have to place his name not last in the roll of the medical worthies who give lustre to that ancient city. We regret that our circumscribed space prevents us doing justice to Dr. Crosse's Prolusion. We can only introduce, by way of specimen, a fragment of the sketch he has given of Mr. Dalrymple.

"All unbecoming competition Mr. Dalrymple was a stranger to, for his ardent love of the calling he had embraced, and so successfully pursued, was the powerful and the only needed stimulus to his exertions. Whilst practising in this city, he constantly showed himself more jealous of his reputation than of his purse; he left the public to find out his qualifications, and required that it should seek to reward him, being not in the pursuit of wealth, like one possessed of mediocrity of talent, but in pursuit of the science of his profession and of his own continual improvement in that science. It appears that Mr. Dalrymple was many years resident in this city ere his talents were adequately appreciated, and longer before he became connected with this Hospital. His rise was the slower, but perhaps the more secure, from his delicacy on certain professional points, and his deference to certain customs which help to regulate our profession, and which if young men do not respect, they have no longer any guide but their passions. People are led so much more by their prejudices and feelings, than by reason and good judgment, that the art of rising in practice consists as much in knowing how to please, as how to cure diseases; it is not surprising that Mr. Dalrymple, who so well understood both these, should have ultimately gained the most extensive employment and the highest reputation in his profession; no man knew better how to unlock the affections of those patients whom he once attended, and he opened all the avenues to their understandings by the most refined eloquence. ... Who is there that knew much of him, and did not applaud that great sensitiveness for his patients, which led him to feel interested in their comforts and well-doing, to his own distress and injury? or has not been captivated by his eloquence, his ready wit, and his extensive information, available upon all the general topics that engage the attention of the most polished society, and which imparted a charm to his conversation that raised bim above all ordinary men? Amidst the honorable strife inseparable from our calling and under circumstances which always placed me in unequal competition, no living being has ever heard from my lips a word respecting Mr. Dalrymple, that was not in strict accordance with this public statement; I have no winged words of flattery for this occasion, and there is no fear of my language surpassing the subject of my discourse, as regards his professional abilities and character."

BOOKS RECEIVED FOR REVIEW.

(

THE

BRITISH AND FOREIGN

MEDICAL REVIEW,

FOR APRIL, 1846.

PART FIRST.

Analytical and Critical Reviews.

ART. I.

Die Operative Chirurgie von JOHANN FRIEDRICH DIEFFENBACH. Erster Band.-Leipzig, 1845.

The Operative Surgery of J. F. DIEFFENBACH. First Volume. Leipsic, 1845. 8vo, pp. 856.

THERE is a great difference between authority in matters of opinion, and authority in matters of fact. Combating as we have continually done against the evil effects of the former in impeding the progress of inquiry, we have been equally willing to yield a ready deference to the latter. Medical authority and surgical authority, also, must be regarded in a different light, even in practical matters. The effects of medicines are obscured by the natural progress of the disease; by changes of weather, and by moral and other influences often inappreciable to the physician, so that some scepticism becomes natural to the critical inquirer after truth, when comparing the results of opposite modes of treatment in internal diseases. But in surgery the nature of the cure is plain, the end attained by an operation evident, and when a man whose practice is open to the scrutiny of a public hospital comes forward and says, "I have performed this operation a thousand times, and prefer this plan," every prudent surgeon must bow to such authority, and feel grateful to the writer who thus enables him to correct or modify the impressions derived from his own more limited experience. Regarded in this light the work before us is one rather for analysis than criticism. The author states that he has written his book "to communicate what he has found useful in surgery to those who have seen less than himself,"-like Richter, desiring not to write a book for the learned, but one containing no page in which a practical surgeon may not learn something calculated to prove useful at the bedside. He says he has seen almost everything that can happen to the sick, and has observed with his own eyes, and never through "coloured

XLII.-XXI.

.1

or strange glasses," and in all cases has preferred expressing his opinion freely and openly, to taking a "half-and-half course between yes and no.” The work is no survey or retrospect of an anxious and busy life, no pensive contemplation in the evening of existence, but the record of daily observations made with all the ardour of youth in the presence of passing events. It is replete with valuable practical matter, the more important part of which we now proceed to lay before our readers.

After a few introductory pages, and a very hasty glance at the history of operative surgery, with some general remarks on surgical instruments, to the end that they should be of the best material, and simple in construction, the operator working and not the tool-our author enters upon the first division of his work, a description of the "operations which are performed on the various parts of the body." The whole of the volume before us is occupied by this division, extending to sixty-seven chapters, which we now proceed to examine in detail. The First is on the extraction of foreign bodies, and is divided into four sections: 1. On the removal of foreign bodies fixed to, or surrounding projecting parts of the body, as rings over the fingers or penis. 2. On their extraction from the natural passages, nares, antrum, meatus auditorius, eyelids, air-passages, pharynx, and œsophagus, stomach and intestines and rectum, and genital organs of the female. 3. On their extraction from the substances of the body, as balls and shot, parts of knives, nails, glass, &c. 4. Method of removing foreign bodies which remain after the healing of the wound caused by this introduction: here we have a curious case of a girl who had been subject to epileptic fits, which ceased after the removal of several fragments of glass from the hand by incision, which had remained several years, she having broken a glass in her hand. The chapter is closed with remarks on the removal of fragments of dead bone, and is useful and practical, without however containing anything particularly new, or peculiar to the author. The second chapter is on the surgical knot, or the union of wounds by suture, comprehending the treatment of wounds by the common suture with the assistance of adhesive plaster, &c., the various applications of the twisted suture, and a comparison of the advantages of the two methods. The latter is a great favorite with Dieffenbach in plastic operations, and in all cases where very accurate union is required to obviate ugly cicatrices. He employs the small spring-hardened insect needles, manufactured at Carlsbad. The use of the subcutaneous suture is then recommended in cases of obstinate salivary, urinary, and other fistulæ. The thread is introduced beneath the skin at some distance from the fistulous opening, and the canal is surrounded by the ligature in the same manner that an artery is tied. The ligature may be left from four to fourteen days, according to circumstances; it is better to withdraw it too late than too early. It is to be employed if the twisted suture have failed, and the author states that he has often used it with success in cases which had resisted every other mode of treatment. The chapter is concluded by some remarks on the knots of the olden surgeons. The author does not appear to be acquainted with the platinum suture, so successfully employed at Guy's Hospital by Mr. Morgan.

In the third chapter the potential and actual cautery are described, their uses and modes of application. The chapter is long, but the author