of a palfy, and a catalepfis; and if he ever directed a vomit, it was after fupper. He bled in a pleurify, only in confequence of the pain; but omitted it in a peripneumony, or inflammation of the lungs, as feldom attended with any. He never bled in a fever, nor even in a phrenzy. He gave wine in the former, after the fever was a little abated; and ordered it in phrenfies, even to inebriation, to,fet the patients afleep. Nevertheless, he gave it' in lethargies to keep them awake, and roufe their fenfes. His practice might poffibly have been the fource of a fort of medical proverb about feeding a cold, fince in that cafe he ordered his patients to drink twice or thrice as much as they ordinarily did; and to add, at least, an equal quantity of wine to their water, which was a much greater proportion than the antients commonly used. With many other fuch particularities and contradictions, it has been allowed that he had confiderable talents; and Dr. Le Clerc judiciously obferves, that if his writings had been preserved, tho' he would fcarcely have been confidered as a good model for practice, yet his works might be pleafing to read, as they muft have been agreeably written; and tho'little useful to Phyficians, they might prove fo to Philofophers, by reflecting fome light on the remains of Epicurus and Democritus, whofe principles he efpoufed, but with fome variation, about the nature of the atoms, which he fuppofed fragile, and not indivifible, as their name imports; naming them rather oyxo, i. e. little lumps or maffes. The most advantageous point of view in which the practice of Afclepiades appears to us, is his attention to the Medicina dietetica, and fparing his patients the load and nauseousnefs of much phyfic. This might have been candidly attributed to his vigilant obfervance of the conduct of Nature in the process and cure of diseases, if he had not professed a total contempt of her oeconomy, as a chimera; and invefted the Phyfician folely with the power of curing, by the controul and regulation of the corporeal motions: a tenet that might cafily difpofe him fo much to frictions, unguents, fweats, fwinging beds, and even penfile baths for the fick. It is confefied that Le Clerc and others, from whom thefe teftimonies concerning Afclepiades are chiefly taken, are cenfured by Sig. Cocchi, as prejudiced, in afcribing fentiments to him which he never entertained. But as Le Clerc, Boerhaave, Haller, and others, who have mentioned him, had the the fame medical* Authorities relating to him with our Author, we think it is not the leaft detraction from his abilities to fuppofe that fuch Writers might, from the fame materials, be equally capable with himfelf, of making a right eftimation of Afclepiades. Le Clerc particularly treats him with ingenuouinefs, in endeavouring to affign a better motive for his behaviour, in the cafe of a phrenetic patient, to whom another Phyfician had previoufly been called, than that motive which Celius Aurelianus plainly infinuates. Indeed, it feems clear to us, that every intelligent medical Reader will collect from Le Clerc's feventeen pages (wherein he has prefented the entire portrait of Afclepiades) a more natural and probable refemblance of his character, than from Sig. Cocchi's feventy-feven pages, which, however learned, are verbofe and declamatory, and do not contain an equal quantity of clear, folid, and pertinent difquifition; but a great number of this Bithynian's Togo or vuides [vacuums] as Le Clerc tranflates them. As we have not feen the Italian original, of which this is a profeffed tranflation, we are of courfe to fuppofe, that nothing has been interpolated by the Tranflator, which is not warranted by the text. Our ftrictures on it can only rega d what has appeared to us. We recollect with pleafure, that the publication of the ancient Greek Surgeons, by + Signor Cocchi, in 1754, from the collection of Nicetas in the Imperial Library at Florence, was introduced with a proper and elegant Latin preface, and that the work was written in a spirit and manner wholly different from thofe of the prefeat work. This circumftance fuggefted to us the poffibility of this performance having been tranflated with fome latitude; efpecially when we obferved a ftrong refemblance of style between it and the Inflitutes of Health; of which it were eafy to give fome difagreeable fpecimens. Another motive which fuggefted this to us, was our recollecting, that this fame Afclepiades, who rarely prohibited the ufe of wine, was alfo in the highest repute with that anonymous Inftitutor of Health; a circumftance which probably induced Except Sig. Cocchi has met with fome ancient MS. relating to Afclepiades, in the Laurentian Library at Florence; but wh.ch he does not mention. + Review, vol. XVI. page 259, feq. Ibid. vol. XXIV. p. 193, feq. him to give the Vintners pretty good quarter, after his dreadful maflacre of the Grocers, the Confectioners, and Oilmen. In the Review referred to, for a former article from Signior Cocchi, our Readers will find a fhort, but entire, fragment from this Afclepiades, who made much noife in his profeffion, as Innovators and Wranglers generally do: in the tranflation of which Fragment, page 264, we should have wrote tragic Poet (Teaywdorow) rather than Tragedian, which our language feems to restrain to an Actor in tragedy. Emilius and Sophia: Or, a new Syftem of Education. By Mr. Rouffeau. N his fecond book, our ingenious Author proceeds to give us farther instances of the abfurdities we fall into, by adopting the common methods of Education, and neglecting those which are pointed out by Nature. Mothers, he obferves, are, in general, abfurdly folicitous to prevent their children from hurting themfelves, by thofe various accidents to which they are conftantly liable; it being at this early age that we acquire our firft principles of courage; and, by being inured to flight inconveniences, learn by degrees to support greater. The first thing we ought to arn, and that which is of the greatest confequence for us to know, he remarks, is to fuffer; children being formed little and feeble, apparently for no other reafon than to learn this important leflon, without danger. I never knew an inftance, fays Mr. Rouffeau, of a child's having killed, maimed, or done itself any confiderable mifchief, when left alone, and at liberty, except in cafes where it has been imprudently expofed to tumble from fome high place, fall into the fire, or left within the reach of fome dangerous weapon. How ufelefs and pernicious, therefore, fays he, is that magazine of implements from which a child is armed at all points against pain; and is by fuch means exposed to it when he grows up, without experience, and without courage! This remark is well worth the confideration of fuch fond parents as are fo extremely tender of their children; and is very agreeably illustrated by the examples cited by our Author. At the fame time, however, it is to be obferved, that Mr. Rouleau is, by no means, an advocate for fubjecting the harmlefs harmless innocents to the evils of wilful neglect, and much lefs to the cruel bondage of unneceffary reftraint. He would have them indulged in the full enjoyment of all the happiness of which they are fufceptible; and this especially from the confideration of the precarious duration of their lives. What can we think, fays he, of that barbarous method of Education, by which the prefent is facrificed to an uncertain future; by which a child is laid under every kind of reftraint, and is made miferable, by way of preparing him for, we know not what, pretended happiness, which there is reafon to believe he will never live to enjoy? But fuppofing it not unreasonable in its defign, how can we fee, without indignation, the unhappy little creatures fubjected to a yoke of infupportable rigour, and condemned, like galley-flaves, to continual labour, without our being affured that their mortification and reftrictions will ever be of fervice to them! Hence the age of chearfulness and gaiety is spent in the midst of tears, punishment, rebuke, and flavery. We torment the poor innocents for their future good; and perceive not that death is at hand, and ready to feize them amidst all this forrowful preparation for life! Who can tell how many children have thus fallen victims to the extravagant fagacity of their Parents and Guardians? As to the happiness of which children, as well as grown perfons, may be capable, our Author throws out fome obfervations, no lefs remarkable for their novelty than ingenuity. They are not, however, altogether fo precife and fatisfactory as we could with. He obferves, that our mifery confists in the difproportion, between our defires and our abilities; and maintains, that a fenfible Being, whofe abilities fnould be equal to its defires, would be pofitively happy. In what then, he afks, confifts human wifdom, or the means of acquiring happiness? To diminish our defires is certainly not the method; for if these were lefs than our abilities, part of our faculties would remain ufelefs and inactive. Nor is it, on the other hand, to extend our natural capacity for enjoyment: for, if our defires fhould, at the fame time, be extended in a greater proportion, we fhould only become the more miferable. He concludes, therefore, it must confift in leffening the disproportion between our abilities and our defires, and in reducing our inclinations and faculties to an equilibrium: as it is in fuch a fituation, and in fuch only, that the whole man is employed. It is thus, we are told, that Nature, which formed every thing in the best manner, originally conftituted us; man, in his infancy, being poffeffed only of fuch defires as tend to his prefervation, and the faculties neceffary to their gratification; fo that it is in this primitive state only, that our defires and faculties are counterpoifed by each other, and that man is not unhappy. Suppofing this to be a true ftate of the cafe, and that our Author is not mistaken in his philofophy, it is certainly with as much juftice as humanity that he advifes parents to indulge children in those harmlefs pleafures which their nature prompts them to pursue. Who is there, fays he among us, that has not, at times, looked back with regret on that period of our lives, when it was natural for the countenance to be always fmiling, and the heart to be as conftantly at cafe? Why then will you deprive your children of the enjoyment of a feafon fo fhort and tranfient? of time fo precious which they cannot abufe? Why will you clog, with bitterness and forrow, those rapid moments which will no more return? Do you know, ye fathers! when the ftroke of death fhall fall on your offspring? Lay not up in ftore then for your own forrow, by depriving them of the enjoyment of the few moments Nature hath allotted them. As foon as they become fenfible of the pleasures of existence, let them enjoy it, so that whenever it may pleafe God to take them hence, they may not die without having tafted of life. Our humane and diftinguifhing Author goes on to expatiate pretty largely on this head; taking great pains to eftablifh a due medium between the two extremes of indulgence and feverity; and to fhew the diff rence between a child that is fpoiled by an ill-judged licentioufne's, and one that is made happy in the reasonable enjoyment of its liberty. Mr. Rouffeau proceeds next to confider the influence of moral precepts and maxims on the minds of children; advifing them to be utterly rejected in the carlier part of Education. Mr. Locke's method, fays he, "was to educate children by reafoning with them; and it is that which is now most in vogue. The fuccefs of it, however, doth not appear to recommend it; for my own part; I meet with no children fo filly and ridiculous as thofe with whom fo much argument hath been held. Of all the faculties of man, that of reafon, which is in fact only a compound of all the reft, unfolds itfelf the · latest, and with the greatest difficulty: and yet this is what we would make ufe of to develope the firft and easiest of them. The great end of a good Education is, to form a reasonable man; |