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birth and promulgation is hitherto uncertain and very precarious, as it feems to depend on the number and generofity of our Author's goffips. But whatever their fate or appearance may prove, this new Theory, as he calls it, is the microfcopic animalcular fyftem of feminal homunculi and feminella; in attempting to establish and illuftrate which, he has, very undefignedly, expofed many of the abfurdi ies attending it; and in this refpect, has certainly overfhot his mark. This fyftem then, which Dr. J. C. fuppofes he has prettily impraved, feems a falfe inference from fome active atoms, falts, or animalcules difcovered by microfcopes in an animal fluid. But it appears equally reafonable to imagine thofe animalcules which have been difcovered in infufions of pepper, of hay, and of other vegetables, and the pafte-eels, to be groves of pepper, and pasture or corn fields in fieri, as, to infer the hypothefis that has arofe from the fimilar appearance in a human fluid. Nevertheless, a paffion for phyfiological discoveries and doctrines, and an unwillingness to acquiefce in fuch a procefs of generation asimplies the notorious fhallownes of human penetration, has greatly contributed to make even fome ingenious and learned men fwallow all the indigestible crudities of this homuncular theory: which, upon the whole, feems not much more probable, than our own fupposition, that certain microfcopical maggots in our Author's brain, are the material feminal caufe of all he already has brought forth, or fhall produce, on this fubject. He condefcends to applaud the great Harvey's difcovery of amnia ex evo; acknowleging he has found out the neft of human nature, which was half the business, one fine quo non; but obferves, how much more he could have taught Harvey, if he had lived in our Author's day, by replenishing the neft for him.

Had this delicate fubject been treated even with the utmost decency and addrefs, we should have judged it improper to prefent our general Readers with any confiderable extracts from it. But as it is a ftrange rhapsody of religious ejaculation, and of indecent ideas, not terms; of tedious and irkfome tautology, with many crude fuppofitions, very uncouthly and even ungrammatically exprefied, notwithstanding the interfperfion of fome Latin and Greek, we affure ourselves that our omitting them will not be difapproved. As the performance abounds in quotations, and fometimes from good Writers, it prevents the book from being always tirefome; and proves that our Author has learned to read, though

he

he is very little advanced in writing. So that if he does not confiderably mend his hand, or rather his head, in the fubfequent volumes, to be gleaned from Lieuwenhoek, and all the Authors he can procure, he will certainly incur fuch a cenfure as Terence paffed on one of his cotemporary Playwrights and Plagiarists,

Qui ex Græcis bonis Latinas fecit non bonas.

Ars medendi: Sive Dofes et Vires medicamentorum omnium tam Galenicorum quàm Chemicorum in Pharmacopoeia Collegii regalis Medicorum Londinenfis impreffa, A. D. 1746. Ordine alphabetico exarata, atque indice morborum accommodatæ. Cura et Opera Medici in Comitatu Staffordia. 8vo. 6s. Waugh,

&c.

TH

HIS Staffordshire Phyfician and Tranflator, who does not oblige us with his name, fays, in his Preface, he was a Scholiaft [he means a Scholar or Pupil] at Leyden, under Dr. Boerhaave, and at St. Thomas's Hospital under Dr. Mead; and that he makes this Scholium or Commentary on the London Difpenfatory by the Royal College of Physicians, for the benefit of young Phyficians, [Medicine Tyronum] which will also fignify Apothecaries Apprentices. permits as many Readers as are not pleafed with the style, the fize, or Latinity of it, to polifh, add to, retrench, alter, or amend it, to their own liking. This is certainly very kind, and to make it ftill more fo, he has left his Latin, at leaft, very capable of confiderable improvement and emendation, throughout a majority of the 564 pages of which his work confifts.

He

In other refpects this fame Scholium is executed by publishing all thofe circumftances of the dofes, the virtues, and the operation, of the officinal Compofitions which the College had thought proper, and characteristical, with regard to themfelves, to omit; as they intended their Difpenfatory fimply for a body of medicinal Compofitions, with Directions to the Apothecaries, how to prepare and compound, not how to direct, to dofe, or apply them. Hence we must conclude the Phyfician to be in his very Novitiate, who has much occafion to recur to this performance; tho' it may be useful to country Apothecaries, and fome young country Practitioners,

We

We cannot justly confider our medical Translator as a Plagiarift, fince he acknowleges, his work to be collected from approved Authors, and experienced Phyficians, befides fome Remarks from his own experience and practice. From the former he fometimes takes, without quoting, particularly from Fuller; tho' the difference of his own Latin will generally diftinguifh his ftyle from that of others. He frequently attempts to tranflate parts of Dr. Lewis's Difpenfatory, without naming him; and tho' the Latin is not often unintelligible, the elegance and purity of the English are seldom preferved in the transfufion. Nevertheless, in the progress of the work, his own expreffion feems to improve a little, as if it were from a recollection of what he had formerly been better acquainted with.

Some Preparations mentioned, at leaft in the later editions of the London Difpenfatory, are omitted in his Comment; and in detailing their virtues, he often wants precifion, refembling Salmon's crudity, more than the accuracy and reflection of Quincy and Lewis; making many medicines good almost for every thing, from apoplexies down to corns; and fometimes contradicting the virtues he had before afcribed to them. This may be exemplified in what he had affirmed of Nitre, p. 266, and unfays of it, 267, to which we refer below*.

Again, fome Preparations are much too generally recommended, without any diftinctions being made as to the different causes, circumftances, and periods of the same difeafe; or the great diverfity of conftitution, feafon, age, or fex. Neverthelefs, as the Author profeffes to have compofed and compiled it, under a complication of difeafes and infirmities, to fome of which it might afford a kind of palliative and amufing fufpenfion, a benevolent Reader will pardon any little fupervening nap, to which the perufal of it may dispose him; when he reflects, the intention of the work was certainly humane; and that it may be attended with more good than evil, were it only from a mere afcertainment of the dofes of many medicines.-The Doctor's truly modeft eftimation of his own performance, and the following humble addrefs and

Antihecticum et antiphthificum eft, vel adverfus tabem pollet, et dolores mitigat, 265 -Noceat tamen internus ejus ufus in uicerofis affe&tibus in Phthifi, quoniam expertum eft nullius commodi in hifce querelis; exiftimatur autem irritationem augere, et dari neutiquam debet, inquit Geoff.oy.

apology

apology to his Readers, at the conclufion of it, must concur to conciliate the pity and good-will of his medical Readers; for which purpofe we conclude this article with it.

"Benevole Lector-Scholium hocce revifu, et caftigatione ulteriori indiget, quo mendis repurgetur; huic autem valetudo adverfa, dolor, Agritudo, Arthritis, Afthma, et Caterva morborum ingruentium infimul repugnant. Humanum eft errare, vitiis fine nemo nafcitur. Utinam hallucinationum immunius prodiiffet in publicum. Mehercule! in hac auguftia amabo, vos, evolvente manu, emendate errata quæ occurrunt, et me lætiffimum delinquentem devinctiffimumque veftratium habebitis."

The Vegetable Syftem. Or, the internal Struɛlure, and the Life of Plants; their Parts and Nourishment explained; their Claffes, Orders, Genera, and Species, afcertained and defcribed in a method altogether new. Comprehending an artificial Index, and a natural Syftem. With Figures of all the Plants; defigned from Nature. By John Hill, M. D. Folio. Vols. II. III. and IV. Price of the IId Vol. 21. 12s. 6d. the IIId and IVth, 11. 118. 6d. each. Baldwin.

H

AVING treated particularly of the Structure and Life of Plants, in the firft volume of this comprehenfive work, our ingenious and accurate Botanift proceeds to enquire. into the manner wherein they are nourished. "The Struc

ture, fays he, and true courfe of their juices being known, it remains only that we examine what thofe juices originally are, whence they are deduced, and by what powers they are conveyed into the vegetable organs." To this end, he confiders the effects of the elements and feafons on vegetable bodies; beginning with thofe of heat or fire; fome portion of which actuating element is of abfolute neceffity to all Plants whatever.

He obferves, that the more heat a plant receives, the thinner are its juices, the fwifter they move, and, of course, the fafter it grows. Hence, if any fpccies receive more than its natural proportion, it becomes rank and luxuriant. Nature, however, will not be thus forced with fafety; the plant fading, and inevitably perishing foon after. On the contrary, if plants be allowed less than their natural heat, in any great

See Review, vol. XXI. page 488.

degree,

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degree, tho' they may continue to live, they ceafe growing produce no flowers nor fruit; and if their warmth be ftill decreased, will drop their leaves and die.

For these reasons, it is obfervable, that perennial plants of warmer climates, become annual in those which are a little colder: a change that is in many inftances reciprocal plants which are annual in England, furviving the winter in more fouthern climates; and thofe which lose their stalks, retaining them there throughout all feasons. Our Author remarks, however, that notwithstanding we thus fee a great deal is owing to heat, yet that it is not so much as is generally imagined; for that different countries in remote parts of the earth, where the degree of heat is alike, do not produce the fame kind of plants: thus Rome and Pekin are nearly under the fame parallel of latitude, but nothing can be more different than Italian and Chinese plants; while the vegetables of the Cape of Good Hope are peculiar and diftinct from those of all the world.

But, tho' the fame heat of climate produces no great fimilarity in the fpecies of plants, we are told, in the next chapter, (concerning the Effects of the AIR in Vegetation) that the diverfity above-mentioned, is probably owing to the difference of the air; for where that is alike, vegetation is alike alfo not only plants of the fame fize, but of the fame fpecies, being found on all high mountains, however remote from each other, or under different latitudes. We fee fhrubs,

fays our Author, of the fame humble height on Mount Olympus and the hills of Greenland; the Alps and Pyreneans, the mountains of the Brafils and of Lapland, yield the fame crops of vegetable nature; nay, there is no difference between the productions of our own Welsh mountains and those of Ararat. As the foil alfo, is different on these various mountains, he thinks, it cannot be that which occafions this amazing regularity and famenefs in their productions. Suppofing the fact indubitable, we cannot, however, join with him in concluding this obfervation fufficient to make us attribute fuch fimilarity altogether to the air.

In the chapter, Of the Effects of EARTH in Vegetation, it is laid down, as an invariable maxim, that plants flourish more or lefs, as the earth in which they grow is more or lefs foluble in water; pure black mould, it is faid, is of all earths the moft foluble, and therefore plants grow largeft in this: of which the mould of garden borders is an inftance; and,

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