phor and No. 6, and apply it to the breast, and give a dose of composition powders. If this is done before suppuration takes place, it will relieve in one hour, and the milk will flow freely again I believe it would be good for white swellings in the -first stages. W. P. E.

CURE FOR THE DROPSY. The following article came to our hand from a most respectable source, and we strongly recommend it to the attention of our readers.-Salem Gazette.

Extract from a letter written by a very intelligent and respectable man, dated in Maine, April 5th, 1838:

"I am knowing to two extremely distressing cases of dropsy being suddenly relieved by the means of the bark of Elder. One a woman advanced in years, in the last stage of the disease, who lost a brother a short time previous, by the same disease. The other a young woman who had been confined to her bed for nearly 12 months, (4 of which, previous to January last, she was unable to lie down,) and whose strength was almost exhausted, is now wholly free from dropsy, and recover. strength in a manner surprising and unex pected. Other cases less aggravating have been cured by the same. The recipe is: "Take two handfulls of the green or inner bark of the white common Elder, steep it in two quarts of white Lisbon wine, twenty-four hours, take a gill of the wine in the morning, fasting, or more if it can be borne ; or if more cenvenient, in the morning, or part about noon, on an empty stomach. The effect of the bark prepared as above, or the pressed juice from the leaves (full grown) which had been used with success when wine could not be procured, is, that it promotes all the animal secretion necessary to health, which is the cause of its salutary effect in dropsy. Great debility will always follow the use of powerful evacuants, and the best medical writers now recommend nutritious aliment as the best medicine in every, even in extreme cases of debility. The bark and leaves of the elder have been long known as powerful evacuants, and not esteemed unsafe. Yet caution is recommended in using the buds, as their effect is esteemed, and has been found dangerous in some cases."

All monopolies are inimical to liberty.

OLD SORES.

The great cause of the failure in curing the above, is owing to the remedy being applied to the part affected, instead of the system generally.

In our treatment of such cases we have invariably put entire dependence upon medicine to effect the whole system, do ing little or nothing to the sore, unless it be to keep it moist, and for that purpos we oftener use simple cold water than any other article.

Our reasons for this treatment are simply, that no matter what the first cause of the sore was, it has, after long standing, become a kind of outlet, or drain, for the morbid matter which collects in other parts of the system; thus let a person in this situation have a severe cold, he will not have that mucus discharge from the head which is the case with persons not so situ ated; but instead of this, the sore will immediately begin to discharge much more freely, and continue so to do, besides being more painful, as long as this difficulty remains in the system.

In this situation, all the benefit that any application to the part affected, can possibly be, is to increase the discharge, and thereby to get free the sooner of this extra difficulty occasioned by the cold. In this way a person may continually work upon a sore for forty years, (if he happens to live so long,) and in the end be no better off, than at the commencement.

And this, we believe, is pretty much all that is done by the faculty in those cases, viz: first, a wash, then a poultice, then a salve, and these changed, reversed and re-reversed, and nothing accomplished unless it may be to scatter the complaint to some other parts of the system, wher should it happen to seat on the lungs, the person in a few months, generally, die with consumption, occasioned entirely by wrong management.

A person says, I have had a sore on my leg these ten, twenty, and perhaps eve fifty years, and now how will you go t work to cure it? Why in the first place after some little preparatory medicine, w shall steam you, then we shall vomit and sweat you, and after this we shall stear you again, shower you with cold water and rub you thoroughly from head to foot and all this in about six hours, by whic time the system will generally, (for th time being,] be pretty well cleansed

the morbid matter which had previously been pressing to the diseased part; consequently that part will be relieved, and

have a chance to heal.

But, says one, do you not do something for the sore while the person is going through the above mentioned operation. Oh, yes, we should keep the part affected, wet with cold water; and now you will probably inquire, what is going on to cure the sore, for surely cold water will not do it. Well, about the same thing will cure in this case, that does in fresh wounds where no medicine of any kind is used, viz:-Nature, the great cure-all in every complaint.

BATHS IN RUSSIA.

On Saturday afternooe are to be seen whole groups of men, women, and children hastening to the baths, carrying in one hand a thick birch brush, and in the other a small bundle of clean linen. The love of cleanliness, implied by this universal custom, must be admitted to be extremety creditable to this northern people. There is no refreshment more acceptable to the senses, or more salutary to the system at large, than is that of the bath; it is wholesome, bracing, and purifying. Yet it is by no means so commonly sought for as might hence be inferred. The inhabitants of the hotter climates generally use Our opinion is that medicine in no case it most; but here the habit is to be witcan properly be said to perform a cure-nessed among a people chained in almost that all it does is to cleanse the system of continual frost.-Tietz's St. Petersburgh. obstructions, remove the first cause of disease, and then nature performs the rest. [Botanic Advertiser.

PERSIAN ROSES.

"A man must behold a Persian rose to have any idea of its transcendant excellence above the roses of any other country; and its charms are not thrown away. The gardens of prince and people are universally planted with it; and every path strewed with its delicious flowers."

SINGULAR PETRIFACTION. A petrified fish was recently taken from a limestone quarry about six miles from Jackson, (Miss.) The Mississippian says: it was imbedded in solid rock, and is about 14 inches in length, and 2 or 3 inches thick; the scales and fins as natural as if it had just been taken from its native element. It was the opinion of many of the wise antiquarians of our town, that the aforesaid fish was a tenant of the vast deep, long before Noah's ark floated over it; but this matter we leave for geologists to determine, as we are not particularly skilled in antideluvian affairs.

These groves of roses, some of which grow to the height of fifteen feet, form avenues of superior beauty, and when apread over platforms and diversified with Lilacks, with a thick underwood of fragrant shrubs, are the favorite resorts of numer ous nightingales. The Palaces of the King FOREST TREES IN THE ISLAND display all that original magnificence can achieve, in splendor or artificial decorations, in superb grottos, terraces, labyrinths, fountains, avenues, baths and gardens, and every where the rose predominates, with the nightingale inhabiting its branches.

SECRESY.

Alexander once told an important secret to one of his attendants, with strict charge not to mention it. In a little time the secret got abroad. Alexander was greatly offended, and consulted one of the sages of Greece as to how he should punish the man who, had betrayed him. The sage replied, "Do nothing to him; it is you that has betrayed your own secret; if you could not keep it yourself, no wonder that it was too much for another."

OF SUMATRA.

There is nothing more striking in the Malagan forests, than the grandeur of the vegetatiou. The magnitude of the flowers, creepers, and tress, contrast strikingly with the stunted, and I had almost said pigmy vegetation of England. Compared with our forest trees, your largest oak is a mere dwarf. Here we have creepers and vines entwining larger trees, and hang-.. ing suspended for more than a hundr feet-in girth, not less than a man's body, and many much thicker. The trees, seldom under a hundred, and gener all y approaching a hundred and sixty to two hundred feet in height. One tree that we, measured, was, in circumference, yards! and this is nothing to one I reasured ins Java.-Raffle's Memoirs.

If the mineral doctors that have administered deadly poisons to their patients were to suffer on the gallows, there is not hemp enough in the country to hang them. [Boston Post.

Book and Job Printing,

Lectures on Medical Sciences At the solication of numerous friends of Me. dical Reform, particularly the gentlemen who have heard us on this subject, we have determin. ed to write out 2ud publish our Lectures on Me. dical Sciencey will appear in Extras to the Recorder, of size intermediate between the Recorder and the last Extras, and contain about 500 pages. This will constits the first part: on Theory and Practice in all thei. departments. Price $3. in advance. As five dollar will pay for this work, and any one volume of the Recor. der, it can be very conveniently remitted. It will

be commenced shortly, and sent and continued pretty regularly to all who have sent, or may send us the needful.

After this is completed, the Lectures on Botany and Materia Medica will follow with about 100 cuts. Price $2.

Our former works have been thrown off amidst

the hurry of incessant and complicated bors, we did not expect that they would do us much honor. It is sufficient to us if they have been "better than nothing" But we intend that the works now proposed, shall be a credit to ourself, and, in some good degree, worthy of the subject on which they treat. Subscriptions may be sent immediately.

$5 will pay for two copies to the same person, and the postage will be the same as that of the Recorder. A CURTIS. Subscriptions received by the Editor of the Journal, Charleston, S. C. August 4

Notice.

Persons wishing to procure copies of the first volume of the Southern Botanic Journal, bound, or in numbers, can be supplied by applying to D. F. Nardin, Charleston.

Those who are desirous of having the second volume full, who have not subscribed, had better subscribe immediately, as the publisher does not print but a few With neatness and Despatch. more copies than are subscribed for.

EXECUTED AT THIS OFFICE,

The

Southern Botanic Journal.

VOL. II.]

"Great names may give splendor to error, but cannot transform it into truth."-ROBINSON.

CHARLESTON, S. C., SEPT. 15, 1838:

[No. 15.

In my present inquiry, I shall first speak of heat as belonging to climate.

The mean temperature of the surface of the earth, and which embraces the middle that those climates which enjoy exemption latitudes, is 60°, and we may fairly assert from the extremes of heat and cold, afford the most numerous and striking examplēs of supériority in the human race, both as regards the elevation and refinement of the mental qualities, and of the physical

structure.

I purpose on the present occasion, to It was forcibly observed by the late Dr. consider in a medical point of view the Black, that "were the heat which at preeffects of heat on the human body, and sent cherishes and enlivens the globe alalso in a brief manner to treat of its influ-lowed to increase beyond the bounds at ence as a physiological and physical agent. In the last session of the meetings of this College, the effects of cold were set forth by the learned president with his usual felicity and talent; and although haud possibus æquis, I will endeavor to give an outline of the converse, so far as the confinement of my necessary limits will

admit.

Questions of deep interest continue to engage the attention of the philosopher and the chemist, concerning the properties of this all-pervading agent: The greater part of what is useful and important has perhaps been discovered; and I may probably with truth state, that the two chief points which remain as problems for future science and inquiry, relate-1st, to the consideration whether caloric or the matter of heat is a distinct substance, or whether, like gravitation, it is only a property of matter; and, 2dly, to the cause of subterranean heat. Is it volcanic in its origin, and partial in locality and operation; or central, universal, and differing in intensity and action, from causes too deep within the recesses of the earth for human hand and eye to discover?

Read at the College of Physicians, March 5, 1838.-Abridged from the original composition.

present prescribed to it, besides the destriction of all animal and vegetable life, which would be the immediate inevitable consequence, the water would lose its present form, and assume that of an elastic vapor, like air; the solid parts of the globe would be melted and confounded together, or mixed with the air and water in smoke and vapor; and nature would return to the original chaos."

That the solar powers should be so distributed and regulated that the terrestrial globe may receive its benefits, however differently apportioned; and man, its highest inhabitant, enjoy so many consequent blessings; is only one amongst the innumerable instances in which we find occasion to bow down our knee with gratitude, and look with uplifted eye, not to the great luminary of the globe, like the untaught Parsee, but to its all-wise author, the great Creator himself! In the wide scheme of creation, we may be well aswithstanding that in the extremes of seasured that "whatever is, is right," notsons, and in the irregularities, as they ap pear to us, of meteorological phenomena, we may experience great inconvenience,. and even occasional injury.

In our temperate climate we know but little of the deleterious influence of ex

We are not, however, to consider tha the effects of isolation bear exclusively or the head. At one of the evening mee tings of this College, last year, a paper wa It may not frequently happen in our read from the pen of Mr. Russell, of the English climate that the heat of summer 73d regiment, who relates three cases o is sufficient to be productive of immediate coup de soleil, in which the morbid a great injury to the body; but it is of occa-pearances found after death were not sional occurrence that extremes of temperature have within short distance of pe riods been remarkable. It is stated in the Phil. Trans. that in the night of June 10, 1749, water exposed in a saucer formed a firm cake of ice, and that on some follow ing days there were considerable frosts.