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No one ever thinks of consulting a physician respecting an inoculation for the small-pox, other than the gentleman who presides over the medical department at the hospital, unless the disease be likely to terminate fatally, and, in that case, but seldom. Families almost always depend on the ability of their apothecary, consequently, physicians cannot be accustomed to see many instances of the disease. Hence it must appear to every person of common understanding, how improper it was for them, without sufficient experience, to make any innovation, and to introduce a new, filthy, and malignant disease, into the human constitution. It has always been a maxim with me to persevere in my opinions, and my mode of practice, until the instruments which I employ disappoint or deceive me, and this not having happened with the small-pox inoculation, I have no reason either to forsake, discard, or change it for any other, until I be convinced by more substantial proofs than have yet been adduced, that it is inferior to vaccination.' P. 2.

It is not our design to make a consideration of the Row-pox a vehicle for a contest between the knowledge of a physician and an apothecary; but we cannot avoid noticing this passage, as it indirectly censures the many respectable names affixed to the recommendation of the practice of vaccination. Perhaps Dr. Squirrell should have reflected that the benefits of experience are not the result of the number seen, but the degree of attention paid, and the scientific views with which the object is perceived. A nurse may have seen more cases of small-pox than an apothecary; but can a nurse conduct the business of inoculation better? Is it not, on the other hand, more probable, that the number of objects constantly passing under the eye may allow each to make a less impression? Is Dr. Squirrell also aware of the fact, that physicians are scarcely, in any instance, called in to conduct the process of inoculation? To speak of his experience and our own is unnecessary, and would be invidious: but, in publications, our best information has been derived from physicians; and if they, from their limited experience, have been erroneous, why have not the apothecaries corrected them? Let us add, in a general view, that we have not yet seen an apothecary of general comprehensive science: such undoubtedly there are, but they are rare aves. In general they pursue a routine; their education fits them for no more; and when the little circle is completed, they cannot move out of it. We have formerly remarked, that we would as soon train a race-horse in a mill.

This, it will be said, is strong language: it is so; and we would not have employed it, did not the work before us furnish us with proofs of the incapacity of the apothecary to judge with scientific precision of a case which requires CRIT. REV. Vol. 4. January, 1805.

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general scientific views. The old story of the cow-pos originating from the grease is revived. We agree with Dr. Squirrell, that nothing is more disgusting, more grossly filthy; and we are free to own, that in the first moment we felt a nausea at the suggestion, which, even at this distance, on the recapitulation of the image, recurs. Many an invalid, we know, has forfeited, from this idea, his most salutary meal. This opinion, notwithstanding the slight support it received from Dr. Loy, is, we believe, now abandoned. It remained for Dr. Squirrell to contend that the grease is a scrophulous disease. Scrophula is an affection of the conglobate glands. Are these found in the heels of horses? we disdain so poor a triumph. But this must be scrophula; 1st, because it affects the heels; and scrophula affects the joints. But the grease affects the pastern, not the joints. 2dly. It must be Scrophula because it arises from habit, and from a morbid state of the blood. May it not for the same reasons be gout or scurvy? It must, 3dly, be scrophula; because arising from cold, debility, an impoverished state of the blood, occasionally a plethoric state, wet and low grounds. Are these exclusive causes of scrophula? In short, are either of these causes of the discase, if we except debility and moisture, which occasions also rickets, cretinism, scurvy, &c. &c. Both will occasion, it is also remarked, a stiff joint; so will gout and rheumatism: the proximate cause and cure of each, it is said, are unknown. We suspect that these circumstances will ally the grease to almost every disease of the human body. This, however, is trifling. We shall take a more serious tone, and ask, if, after such arguments, and such very inadequate knowledge of medicine; if, after a professed unacquaintance with the conduct of vaccination, and with its effects; the opinion of an apothecary can be put in competition with the names affixed to the recommendation of this prophylactic? We shall add only, that had Dr. Squirrell been acquainted with scrophula, he would have known, that it was a constitutional, not an acquired disease; that it required no occasional causes to give it effect, but occurred, notwithstanding the greatest care and attention to the health in general.

The pernicious consequences of the cow-pox are also insisted on. In our experience, and it has not been limited, we have much more seldom seen instances of bad effects from cow-pox than from the small-pox. This may have arisen from fewer cases of the former than of the latter; but we are certain, that eruptions and abscesses have not been the peculiar effect of the cow-pox; and we are confident that in no one of very numerous instances has it excited

schrophula, the peculiar fomes of which it is here supposed to be. It happened in one family, that out of three children two had been inoculated with the small, and one with the cow-pox. The two former had suffered severely from the former disease, and the latter passed the vaccina as usual. Some months afterwards, the two eldest, with the child's maid, suffered from small abscesses in different parts of the body: the child inoculated with the cow-pox, who, as the youngest, alone slept with the servant, escaped completely. At least, then, the cow-pox left no peculiar predisposition to eruptions. One case is distinctly related, where, after the cow-pos, cuticular complaints were violent, and the child sunk under the irritation they occasioned. It is unfair, however, to argue, that the vaccina was the cause. We could enumerate many such instances. At this moment, we have two similar cases after inoculated small-pox, and we do not accuse that disease. Dr. Squirrell very candidly gives the process for evacuating this filthy matter, once imbibed from the system; but, for this, we must refer the adversaries of the cow-pox to the work itself. In the conclusion, inuch is said in favour of inoculation, and various extracts to this purpose are added from different authors. To this we cannot have the slightest objection. The answer must be taken from the mortality of the small-pox in three years previous to the practice of vaccination, and an equal period since. The bills published in the newspapers we must suppose comparatively correct, and those who still adhere to the practice may reflect, inventá fruge glande vescimur.

For this long article, on a short work, some apology may be necessary: it cannot have been written to gain popular favour; for, having incurred no little share of obloquy from our first opposition, we may again experience it from the part we now take. In each, however, we have done what we supposed to be our duty. We, in the first place, endeavoured to prevent practitioners from running headlong into an untried path. We now attempt to persuade them not to quit a beaten road, because some pits and quagmires are in the way. Let each party be cautious: let every fact be accumulated science and humanity will, at all events, be the gainers; and should the present, as it may happen, be the last time this hand is employed on the subject, the mind that dictates will repose in consciousness that it has nothing 'extenuated, nor set down aught in malice.'

MONTHLY CATALOGUE.

RELIGION.

ART. 15.-The Restoration of Family Worship recommended, in two Discourses; selected, with Alterations and Additions, from Dr. Doddridge's plain and serious Address to the Master of a Family. To which is prefixed an Address to his Parishioners. By John Brewster, M. A. 8vo. 1s. Rivingtons. 1804.

The restoration of family worship is unquestionably of the first importance. We may justly say that on it depends, in a very eminent degree, the morals and manners of the rising generation. An attention to religious concerns in the head of a family will have more influence with those who are under his superintending eye than the best address from the best informed minister can be expected to produce. Such discourses, therefore, as the present, and drawn from such a source as the writings of a Doddridge, will prove acceptable to the friends, and useful to the cause, of religion.

ART. 16.-The natural Placability of God. A Discourse at Moreton Hampstead, July 4, 1804, before the Society of Unitarian Christians, established in the West of England, for promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Practice of Virtue, by the Distribution of Books. By John Davis. 8vo. 1s. Johnson. 1804.

Mr. Davis strenuously contends that God is essentially and naturally merciful; that, whether he pardons or punishes, the purest benevolence towards mankind influences him.' We agree with him. He contends that the idea of Christ having been a sacrifice for the sins of In this we must be permitted the world is unfounded and erroneous.

to dissent from him.

ART. 17.-A Sermon, preached in the Church of Louth, at the annicersary grand provincial Meeting of free and accepted Masons, August 13, 1804. By the Rev. Thomas Orme, D. D. F. S. A. &c. Sto. 1s. Rivingtons. 1804.

The object of Dr. Orme's discourse is to remove the unfavourable opinions which have been formed as to the tendency of the masonic institutions. One of the chief points which has been insisted on by its adversaries is, that if free masonry tended, as its followers assert that it does, to the promotion of religion and universal charity, it would be unnecessary, nay injurious, to cramp and fetter with secreey

and oaths what might be the instrument of so much benefit to all mankind. To remove the impression which such an argument may have made, Dr. Orme observes that something more than general affection is necessary to excite in us a warm and active loving kindness. That as we are united to our families and relations by particular ties, so freemasonry also has for its object, to draw men into a closer union with each other, by exciting a more particular interest in the breast of each member than the consideration of our being common brethren could possibly do.

ART. 18.4 Sermon preached in the Parish Church of Chesham, before the Grenadier Company of the first Regiment of Bucks Voluntcers, on Sunday the 12th of August, 1804; in consequence of Colours having been presented to the Regiment on Wednesday the 8th of the same Month. To which is prefixed the Prayer of Consecration. By the Rev. John Simpson, Curate of Chesham. 8vo. 1s. Ebers, 1804.

On so trite and thread-bare a subject we can expect nothing new. The object of this discourse is to show that triumph and defeat are in the hands of God alone, who converts the councils of men to the furtherance of his secret purposes. We shall only add that the morality of this sermon is superior to its execution.

ART. 19.-A Sermon preached at Chelmsford, in the County of Essex, on Sunday, July 29, 1804. By the Rev. Robert Lowth, A. M. Prebendary of St. Paul's. 4to. is. Cadell and Davies.

1804.

The congregation, as it appears, before whom this sermon was delivered, requested Mr. Lowth to communicate it to the public. This is, in some measure, the only apology for its publication. We cannot, however, forbear to say, that, had we been of the number of his audience, we should not have joined in the petition; since we should have deemed such expressions as the following sentence exhibits, altogether unworthy of a religious composition:

It (the Catholic religion) is now, since a mountebank usurper has taken upon himself to new model it, become too absurd to fear, and much too contemptible any longer even to laugh at. It has dwindled into the most despicable after-piece ever offered to the public; and, like most despicable productions of a would-be author, is completely damned here, however it may fare hereafter.' P. 15.

ART. 20.-A Sermon, preached in the Parish Church of St. Mary's, Stafford, at the Visitation held by the Archdeacon, August 8, 1804. By the Rev. Edward Whitby, Vicar of Seighford. 8vo. 1s. Longman and Co. 1804.

From the first chapter of Ephesians, verses 8 and 9, the preacher takes occasion to vindicate the doctrine of justification by faith, and of showing that this, if properly understood, is so far from excluding the necessity of good works, that it offers one of the strongest reasons for the performance of them. The discourse was printed at the request of the archdeacon, at whose visitation it was preached, and is a respectable one.

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