and the plexus of the nerve, in its course upon the oesophagus, it will not appear surprising, that disorder of the uterine system, affecting the stomach, and also primary disorders of the stomach itself, should produce the globus hystericus, or paralysis, or spasms of the pharynx and oesophagus. Although the heart and stomach be separated by the diaphragm, yet through this nervous cord they are united: and this explains why disorder of the stomach should produce such changes on the heart's action. The pause, or intermission of the pulse, which, in many diseases, is a fatal symptom, is often produced in a manner less alarming-merely by irritation of the stomach. Seeing these many connexions of the stomach with the vital parts, through this nerve, our surprise ceases at a blow on the stomach proving instantly fatal." 248. Mr. Bell, in his lectures, has, for some time past, shown that all the spinal nerves, the sub-occipital, and the fifth, have several essential circumstances in common--for instance, they have each two distinct roots, with a ganglion on one of these roots-that they are exquisitely sensiblethat they are distributed to muscles for locomotion and action-that each nerve is distributed to its corresponding division of the body, without ever taking a longitudinal course thither. "When we examine the origin of the nerves minutely, we shall find, that the Vth is the only nerve of the skull, which comes off in such critical circumstances, as to have a root from the crus cerebri, and another from the crus cerebelli,-which parts may, by comparative anatomy, be proved to be the continuation of the anterior and posterior divisions of the spinal marrow. The Vth will also be found to be the only nerve within the skull, which has a ganglion at its roots. Those who have dissected the deep nerves of the head, or who have attempted to demonstrate the branches of the Vth pair to students, will be able to estimate the value of this view. "I have examined the nerve repeatedly, in its whole course, in man, in the horse, the ass, the calf, and the dog. By these dissections, I have been convinced, that, in every respect, the Vth pair resembles the spinal nerves, even in the peculiar form of its ganglion and plexus. In the horse, there is as distinct a plexus formed by the branches of this nerve which go to the different parts of the head, as there is formed by those which go from the axilla, or loins, to supply the limbs. I conceive, also, that the form of the part from which this nerve arises, is analogous to that of the spinal marrow where the axillary nerves take their origin. If this be correct, it will be another proof of the similarity of the Vth nerve in the spinal nerves." 256. In this investigation, Mr. Shaw has had to correct the very common mistake that the great sympathetic has its principal connexion with the nerves of the head, through the medium of the VIth pair. The branches which appear to go to the VIth pair, go, in reality, to the ganglionic portion of the Vth. By the establishment of this fact, Mr. Shaw thinks it is proved that even the connexion between the sympathetic and the Vth is similar to the union of the sympathetic with the ganglionic roots of the spinal nerves.* Mr. Shaw makes many ingenious remarks on the nerves of the face, especially the portio dura of the auditory nerve and its connexions, but we cannot transcribe or abbreviate them. Upon the great sympathetic and its connexions also, much interesting matter is introduced. We shall find, he observes, that each cervical nerve has a double root-i. e. one from the anterior, and the other from the posterior column of the spinal marrow-that the one from the posterior has, immediately before it joins with the anterior, a ganglion formed upon it; and if we carefully examine this, we shall find that, from each ganglion, a small nerve is sent off, to unite with the sympathetic. This circumstance was entirely overlooked by Bichat, who has described the ganglion, but not the nerve of communication. Had this great anatomist lived to investigate farther, he would probably have given up the idea of the sympathetic being a part entirely distinct from the system of the spinal nerves. Mr. Shaw's chapter on the surgical dissection of the neck and head contains matter that every surgeon should carefully study. And here we must close our notice of the work, having passed over entirely the great body of it, as occupied in anatomy and physiology, on which we could not enter. We shall not go the length of one of our cotemporaries, in asserting that Mr. Shaw's book will supersede all others of the kind, because we are convinced that, in the present state of things, such an event cannot happen, even if the Angel Gabriel were to write a student's manual. On the contrary, we are disposed to think that the work will be more popu lar among those classes for whom it was least designed -namely, those at a distance from the metropolis. who are slowly initiating themselves, at county hospitals and infirmaries, in the knowledge of anatomy and dissection -ór who, having concluded their studies, may be anxious to profit by all the chances of post mortem investigations, which private or public practice may throw in their way. We repeat it, as our opinion, that the work is too good for the migratory annual student, who thinks his time will not See a paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the present year on the subject. admit of more knowledge than the most laconic manuals of anatomy can supply. To this class (unfortunately a large one) we fear Mr. Shaw's book will not prove quite satisfactory; but he may well console himself by reflecting and knowing that his labours will circulate widely among those who are most capable of rightly appreciating their value. -Neque te ut miretur turba labores. Hor. VII. 1. The History of Plague, as it has lately appeared in the Islands of Malta, Gozo, Corfu, Cephalonia, &c. detailing important Facts, illustrative of the Specific Contagion of that Disease, with particulars of the Means adopted for its Éradication. By J. D. TULLY, Esq. Surgeon to the Forces, Member of the lonian Academy, late Inspector of Quarantine, and President of the Board of Health of the Ionian Islands. One vol. 8vo. pp. 292. London, 1821. : 11. Researches into the Laws and Phenomena of Pestilence: including a Medical Sketch and Review of the Plague of London, in 1665 and Remarks on Quarantine. With an Appendix containing Extracts and Observations relative to the Plagues of Morocco, Malta, Nova, and Corfu: being the Subject of the Anniversary Oration, delivered before the Medical Society of London, in the Spring of 1820, and published at their Request. By THOMAS HANCOCK, M. D. Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, and Physician to the City and Finsbury Dispensaries. One vol. 8vo. pp. 379. London, 1821. "While vapours blown by Auster's sultry breath, "I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up into your nostrils." AMOS. 4 FEW nations, at one or other period of their history, have escaped the ravages of plague; and unfortunately the inhabitants of those countries in which it seems to have fixed its headquarters, are so strongly impressed with a conviction of its irresistible power that they succumb before it, without a struggle, regarding its appearance among them as a direct visitation from Heaven, and considering any measures of prevention or resistance as little less than impiety! What can be more reasonable than that, among such people, the fomites of the disease are never extinct, though various circumstances may render them at one time apparently epidemic, and at another nearly dormant. These vicissitudes have furnished the anti-contagionists with a pretext (not a very plausible one either) for confounding PLAGUE with those endemics which rise and fall at particular seasons of the year, and depend, as far as we have yet been able to ascertain, on certain conditions of air and earth, not cognizable indeed by the senses, but too evident from their deleterious effects on the human constitution. Happily for mankind, the concurrent testimony of ages has induced a general belief that plague arises from a specific contagion that it is communicated by contact (or exceedingly close proximity) alone-and that seclusion and separation are the only means of checking, and ultimately exterminating its power. Fanciful theorists, indeed, have started up in all ages, to deny the contagion of plague, and generally have forfeited their own, and thousands of other lives, in consequence of their temerity. Thus, during the plague at Marseilles, in 1720, the physicians in Paris determined that it was not contagious, and their delegates at Marseilles acting conformably to this opinion, sixty thousand people fell victims to the disease in the space of seven months. A similar prepossession induced the faculty in Sicily to declare the plague which ravaged Messina in 1743, not to be contagious, and forty-three thousand lives were lost. The doctrine of noncontagion, however, being in these instances so immediately refuted by facts, these cases can only be considered as insulated exceptions to the general belief in contagion. Those, too, who have had most experience in plague, are those who most confidently believe it contagious; while the non-contagionists are generally speculative closet physicians, who have seen little or nothing of the disease. Thus Russel, Howard, Fra Luigi de Pavia, Raymond of Marseilles, Giovanelli of Leghorn, Sir James M'Grigor, Sir Brooke Faulkner, and, in fact, all British physicians, who have had any experience of plague, assert its contagious character, while Dr. Maclean, determined on its being noncontagious long before he ever visited those countries where it is prevalent, travelled with his eyes blinded to the most obvious facts, (for surely a brace of pestilential buboes in his own groins were argumenta ad hominem.) and returned with all that he could scrape together, on one side of the question, but carefully slurring over all that presented on the other. As an example of this sort of fair investigation, we shall here bring forward an important fact stated by Mr. Tully, and personally witnessed by Dr. Greaves, Inspector of Military Hospitals, and Superintendent of Quarantine in the Island of Malta. An extensive building at the extremity of Strada Vescoso, in Valetta, had, for years, been occupied as a military hospital, and was only separated from Dr. Greaves's house by a narrow lane, not more than ten feet in breadth. During the prevalence of plague, this hospital was occupied by the sick of one of the battalions quartered in the town, admitting the ordinary proportion of the common diseases incidental to the climate, the season, and military life. The under apartments of the hospital were partitioned into several distinct habitations, dry and comfortable; while the site of the building itself was allowed by all to be one of the healthiest in Valetta. The several entrances to these apartments were lofty and spacious, and each dwelling gave an asylum to Maltese-in the proportion of about seven to each apartment. Plague, which was making havoc in the neighbourhood, at length penetrated these apartments, seven in number, four of which were, in a few days, completely depopulated; while in the remaining three, two individuals only, of each family, escaped. Independently of the ravages that were committing below, many of the families in the immediate vicinity were attacked, contagion extending indiscriminately to the upper as well as the lower apartments of these dwellings." The inmates of the hospital were closely shut in, every avenue to intercourse between them and the inhabitants of the town was securely guarded, and all communication effectually cut off. What was the consequence? "While plague was running its destructive course in every angle, every individual within the walls of the hospital continued perfectly free from danger, and this exemption from plague continued throughout the disease." P. 250. If the non-contagionists remark that in marshy countries, and during the prevalence of miasmal fevers, the lower ranges of buildings sometimes suffer, while the upper are free from disease, it may be answered that to talk of marsh miasmata at Malta is to talk nonsense. Remittent and intermittent fevers are there almost unknown, and there is but one single spot on the whole island that ever offered |