of those who employ it, that these few pages have been dedicated to the subject. And any one piece will serve to show the yet strong resemblance between the English and the Frisian; take, for instance, NACH T. Stjerren blinke, wyntjes swye, Sizze fen uus lok forwonderd, The Frisians are certainly not a numerous race, yet their connection with and affinity to the better portion of the English people gives to all that concerns them a particular interest. Their Anglo-Saxon parentage is a topic of frequent satisfaction among them, and any evidence of similar feelings on the part of England and Englishmen, has been welcomed by them with a cordial delight. No labours of literature are so fruitful,none so benevolent as those which spread the sentiments of mutual esteem and mutual respect among nations. He who elevates the general intellectual standard, elevates and improves * NIGHT. Stars are twinkling, zephyrs moving, Side by side delighted sitting, Tho' intrusive eyes may see, Solemn stillness earth possessing, Shakes her dews o'er flower and tree, Nought is heard but gentle blessing, In the sacred darkness fluttering, List! and hear them sweetly uttering, "'Twas in heaven they learnt to love." himself by the effort. In pursuing what is good and wise in another land, we are touched and dignified by the very infection of goodness and wisdom. And to explore other lands in the pursuit of objects to honour and to love, is, indeed, to engage in a voyage of discovery, to which, if some disappointment may sometimes attach, it will always offer abundant resources of encouragement and of reward. ART. X.-1. A Treatise on Fever, &c. By Southwood Smith, M. D. &c. London. 1829. 2. Pathological Observations on Continued Fever, Ague, &c. Part II. By William Stoker, M. D. &c. Dublin. 1829. error. A CARELESS manipulation in the prosecution of an analysis may adulterate a long and laborious investigation, but the disappointment occasioned by such a failure can only be measured, when we know the practical consequences of the genuine result. In studying the laws of dead matter, an ungrounded conclusion will seldom endanger life, or induce sickness; in ascertaining the weights and distances of the heavenly bodies, the discrepancy of a few grains or inches can never be a fatal Mind may be analyzed according to the taste of the metaphysician, and dissected into five or fifty rudimental principles; stars may be weighed by avoirdupois or apothecaries weight, as it may suit the fancy of the astronomer; and the world may stand for ever marshalled into two or more conflicting sects on any abstract question of theoretic science, without involving in their differences the welfare of a single interest, or the safety of a solitary individual. But in medicine nothing can be more desirable than unanimity; nothing more destructive than partial and opposing views. In a science, having for its objects the prevention of disease, and the preservation of health --of all desired objects the most desirable-the simplest theory cannot be indulged in without bringing into stake a thousand lives. A random step upon such sacred ground must lead to danger, may lead to death. The lives of our fellow-creatures are the materiel we experiment upon, their happiness or misery is the issue to which every experiment must tend. A faithless rule, or a fanciful remedy, in the hands of a loose and inaccurate practitioner, may prove the cause of more real evil than a wide and woeful pestilence. Reasoning therefore in such a science should be conducted on the most rigid principles, and the chaste prose of sober truth should never be adulterated with the meretricious poetry of drunken fancy. An examination of the two works at the head of this Article has insensibly led to this admonitory strain. Written by talented members of the same profession, devoted to the same subject, and constructed out of distinct experiences, which from their variety and extent lay claim to equal consideration, they are, nevertheless, seldom agreed on any point, save that of taking different views of the same subject. How writers of the same standing and of the same day, cultivators of the same science within the same kingdom, and attendants upon the same disease, should observe so differently, and infer so oppositely, must appear strange to any one who has never been behind the scenes, and who is unacquainted with the sources of such discrepancy. Of all diseases fever is the most uncertain in its external character. It may appear in a thousand different aspects, and originate a thousand different sentiments. It is modified by age, by constitution, and by temperament; by internal mechanism and external form; by moral character and physical condition; by climate, latitude, and origin. It varies in solitary cases, and in sweeping epidemics; in town and country; in thinly-populated districts and crowded cities. year it may be characterized by mental depression and corporeal debility; in the next it may be distinguished for general excitement and topical disease. To-day it may require bleeding, and to-morrow wine. In the same individual, at different periods, it may wear very different physiognomies; while, in different individuals, at the same period, it may be peculiar only by exhibiting the same symptoms. This In this capriciousness of external character may be discovered one reason why, by some, fever is regarded as a disease essentially active, by others as an affection of debility: why one maintains that it is an effort of nature to relieve the system of some noxious humour, while another holds it to be one of the most frightfully fatal maladies to which flesh is heir: why this pathologist considers it as a local inflammation, producing general symptoms; that as a constitutional disease, implicating generally and alike every texture and organ: why one physician nurses it with wine and bark, while another starves it with purging and depletion why every province has its own theory, why every town has its own practice. But it may be asked, can the source of all our wide and woeful differences be found in this single cause? Do they exclusively originate in the multiformity of the disease itself; or may they not partly arise from the imperfection of our own concep tions as to what fever essentially is, and how fever should be studied, to be studied with success? These are most important questions, involving the very essence of this important subject; and should we, during their investigation, be compelled to differ from great and grave authorities, we trust that love of truth,the common and centre spirit of all our inquiries,-shall be to us what we regard it with relation to them, an acknowledged and sufficient passport. 'The degree in which the science of mind is neglected in our ageand country, may it not be justly added especially in our profession -that science upon the knowledge of which the conduct of every individual mind is so dependent-is truly deplorable. Medicine is an inductive science, the cultivator of which is peculiarly exposed to the danger of making hasty assumptions and of resting in partial views, yet it is not deemed necessary that he should be at all disciplined in the art of induction, or should be cautioned against any sources of fallacy in the practice of making inferences. All the partial and imperfect views of fever which have now been brought before the eye of the reader, originate in one or other of the following errors, obvious as they all are either that of assuming as a fact what is merely a conjecture; or that of assigning to the genus what belongs only to the species; or that of characterising the disease by what appertains only to a stage; or that of mistaking the effect for the cause. On careful examination it will appear that one or other of these errors, which are as serious as they are palpable, has vitiated in a greater or less degree every generalization of fever that has hitherto been attempted. : 'Thus the believers in debility derive their notion of the whole disease from the phenomena which occur in the first and the last stages only in these, it is true, they may find abundant evidence of debility: but then they overlook the intermediate stage in which there are generally the most unequivocal indications of increased sensibility in the nervous, and increased action in the vascular systems in this manner they characterise the disease by what appertains only to certain stages of it. Again, when they contend that debility is not only the essence of fever in general, but is really characteristic of every type of it, they affirm what is indisputable of fevers in particular seasons, in particular climates, or in particular constitutions; but beyond this their generalization cannot be extended: in this manner they assign to the genus what belongs only to the species. And when Cullen goes on to affirm that the proximate cause of all the morbid phenomena is a spasm of the extreme vessels," he commits the additional and more palpable, but not less common error, of assigning as an undoubted fact, as a real and ascertained occurrence, what is only a conjecture, and for which there is not, and for which he does not even attempt to adduce, the shadow of evidence. 66 Precisely similar to this is the error of those who for the most part belong to the same school, and who attribute the essence of fever to a morbid condition of the blood. The blood may be diseased in fever, but if it be so, these writers do not know it, or at least they do not adduce any evidence that they are in possession of such knowledge: they do not appear so much as to have questioned chemistry; at all events, it is certain that they have hitherto received no satisfactory answer, There is no evidence on record that the alleged deterioration of the blood takes place in every type and every degree of fever: and if there were it would still be but one event among many, and one that occurs late in the series, and therefore could possibly be nothing more than an effect. In like manner those who maintain that inflammation of the brain is the sole cause of fever, assume as an established and admitted fact the universal and invariable existence of inflammation of the brain in this disease. Inflammation of the brain, without doubt, is demonstrable of many individual cases, and of some whole types: but beyond this there is no proof that the generalization can be carried : the evidence indeed in regard to many cases is entirely against the assumption, and is as complete as negative evidence can well be: consequently it must be admitted that even this hypothesis, in the present state of our knowledge, is founded on the error of assigning to the whole genus what belongs only to particular species: and it would be trifling with the reader to attempt to prove, that this is still more certainly and strikingly true with regard to inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestines-an affection which in innumerable cases in which its existence is certain, clearly appears on the slightest examination of the succession of events, to be an effect and not a cause. 'No comprehensive view can be taken of fever, no just conclusion can be arrived at relative to its nature and seat until it be studied with a consciousness of the liability to such errors and a vigilant endeavour to avoid them. The present investigation has been undertaken with a deep consciousness of the danger and a watchful and unremitting care to avoid it. Even if the effort prove to be without success, the example can scarcely remain without use. 3. The frequent and formidable disease on the investigation of which we are entering, cannot be understood until clear and exact answers are obtained to the following inquiries. 1. What is the series of phenomena which constitutes fever? 2. What are the particular phenomena which are common to all its varieties and combinations? What is the order in which these phenomena occur in the series? 4. What are the organs, and what their states, upon which these phenomena depend? 5. What are the external signs of these internal states, or what are the indications by which their existence may be known? 6 What is the external noxious agent or agents, or the exciting cause or causes of the disease? 7. What is the particular remedy, or the particular combination of remedies which is best adapted to each state of each organ? When these questions can be clearly and perfectly answered, and not till then, we shall know the disease and its treatment. In order to make any real progress in this knowledge we must therefore prosecute these inquiries. It appears to me that we are already in possession of ascertained facts, adequate |