will remain to future ages as monuments of their industry and ta lents, and will call forth the grateful acknowledgments of posterity. By such examples may we likewise be excited to exertions that may not be unworthy the approbation of our country." p. 80.

But the part of the discourse which will be perused with most interest by the medical reader, is that in which Dr Baillię delivers his opinions on the nature of disease, and on the light which it receives from the study of anatomy, sound and morbid. Every one must be anxious to know the opinions of a physician who, to all the philosophy of the subject derived from anatomical knowledge, added whatever experience had been enabled to collect during a life of intimate acquaintance with the phenomena and varieties of unhealthy action. These opinions are not so remarkable either for novelty or striking originality, as for simplicity and perspicuity; and so natural and unaffected are they, that any reader might suppose he knew the whole of them before he read them. How valuable such views must have been to those commencing the study of medicine, can be justly comprehended by none but those who are introduced at once into all the mysteries of unintelligible theory, and all the technicalities of affected art.

"Disease may be said to be a wrong action either of the body generally, or of particular parts. Sometimes disease terminates by a gradual diminution of the diseased action, without any visible effects being left behind; while, at other times, it produces some alteration of structure, or the formation of a new substance; but these ultimately depend on diseased action.

"A disease must always have relation to a healthy action, or healthy structure of parts, for it is only a deviation from them; so that a knowledge of disease would appear to rest on a knowledge of the body in its healthy state. It is unfortunate that the peculiar mode of deviation is not always discoverable; but it is evident that we cannot, on any occasion, become well acquainted with the deviation, without having previously known the original state. It is in this point of view that anatomy and physiology become so very important, as affording the most likely means of relieving the body when suffering under disease.

"When the structure and natural action of any part is understood, it will best assist us in discovering what causes may influence the action which produces a morbid change, and how the application of other influences may probably counteract these causes, so as to protect the body from them. It will go still further; for when the causes have been applied so as to produce their effects, it will be most likely to point out what may be most serviceable in bringing back the parts to a natural mode of action.

"The symptoms of a disease are appearances which take place while the body is under a diseased action, and depend on something more secluded from observation. If they arise simply from diseased

action, no other change having been produced, they leave no traces after death; and there is room for conjecture, which will be more or less reasonable, according to the understandings of different persons, and their degree of knowledge of the animal economy. But diseased action often produces a change of structure, or the formation of a new substance, or a new situation; such changes becoming themselves the cause of many symptoms, and being, as it were, intermediate between the symptoms and the diseased action. This gives the opportunity of anatomical examination, so as to trace more distinctly the nature of the disease, to establish a better reasoning upon it, to point out how we should act, what we may hope, and what we may fear.

"It is by no means uncommon that diseases, very different in themselves, should have symptoms a good deal resembling each other. These may very often be confounded, especially by superficial observers; but even men of the soundest judgment are liable to be mistaken. When, however, bodies are examined after death, and the disease is ascertained, the mind will be naturally led to attend minutely to symptoms on a future occasion, endeavouring to detect some marked difference, by which the disease may be distinguished in the living body. Thus opinions and conjectures will be corrected by facts, and physic be daily advancing upon surer grounds.

The illustrations of the necessity of anatomical knowledge, both to the physician and surgeon, are forcible and happy, and are well adapted to kindle a spirit of enthusiasm and zealous application in the breast of the pupil.

"There is nothing which renders a person so capable of discovering new diseases, as a knowledge of anatomy. Who can be so well fitted for this purpose, as he who is familiar with the natural structure, and the diseased appearances in an animal body? What person but an anatomist could have discovered the varicose aneurism, or, taking advantage of Baron Haller's observations upon the hernia congenita, could have explained the cause of that species of hernia in which its contents are in contact with the testicle? There are diseased appearances which are very common in an animal body, and which are of no great consequence; and it requires a familiarity with the human body to be able to distinguish them from appearances strictly natural, and from diseases that are really serious. This last circumstance is of great importance, when we consider how often we are desired to examine bodies after death for the satisfaction of friends, or are called upon to do so by the laws of our country. Upon our judgment may depend the life of a fellow-creaWhat reflection can be more serious to a man of humanity? But, independently of these circumstances, there will be many cases of doubt presenting themselves to our minds, which we would wish to settle, but shall not be able, unless we are acquainted both with natural structure and diseased appearances. Indeed, how otherwise is physic to be improved?"

ture.

Anatomy is still more closely connected with surgery than with

medicine. The first being concerned in local diseases, is capable of receiving more Kight from it than the other, which is more employed about general diseased action. A surgeon who has taken care thoroughly to study anatomy, besides having a chance to be better acquainted with disease, and better able to distinguish between two diseases which are similar, is better fitted to act in any operation. His hand is acquainted with the knife, and he can act more certainly and surely. The knowledge of anatomy fits a surgeon for performing operations in uncommon and difficult situations, teaching him where he should cut with freedom, where with extreme caution, and where not at all. It fills his mind with resources. It points out to him where an operation may be improved, and suggests to him what steps he should take, when circumstances prevent an operation from being done in the usual manner. In a new situation, it will tell him whether he may operate or not, and what plan of operation he is to follow. In fact, anatomy is the basis of surgery, and without it a surgeon neither acts with safety, nor accommodates himself to the infinite variety of circumstances which may occur.

"If, then," he concludes," anatomy be of so much use in phy. sic and surgery, it ought to be earnestly cultivated by those who really wish to understand their profession, and to become respectable in it. This is not a trifling matter. Justice and humanity require every exertion where the lives of our fellow-creatures are concerned, There are many professions where negligence or inattention may be reckoned a folly, but in ours it is a crime.

pp. 84-87.

These observations are certainly neither original nor uncommon, and are so obvious to every person in the least degree acquainted with the subject, that they must be unhesitatingly and unanimously admitted. But they demonstrate the pains and anxiety with which this eminent physician impressed on the minds of those entering on the study of medicine, the indispensable necessity of that knowledge, without which medical observation must be destitute of its surest and safest guide, and medical prescription and treatment may be converted into blind empiricism and downright quackery. That his exhortations might lose none of their force, he not only addresses his arguments to those feelings of honour and mental comfort which are not satisfied without adequate stores of professional knowledge, but he shows the most amiable solicitude in inspiring his auditors with confidence in that great principle by which, amidst the apparent confusion and indiscriminate arrangement of good and evil in human affairs, true merit is never suffered to go unrewarded, or to languish in heartless neglect and obscurity.

"And success, as well as character, depends on attention to education. It is an ill-founded notion arising from deserved disappointment, to say that merit is neglected. It is sometimes joined with circumstances that may have some influence in counteracting it, as

for instance an unfortunate temper, or a disagreeable manner; but generally it meets with its due reward. The world does not often judge erroneously; persons of merit have at least the best chance of success; and who would be ambitious of the public approbation, if it had not the power of discriminating?" p. 91.

These sentiments are highly honourable to the individual who delivers them; and coming from one whose brilliant success had been the immediate effect of mere personal merit, add one to the many testimonies of the general justice with which prosperity and adversity are eventually found to correspond to the actual merits of the candidates.

The second part of the volume, consisting of the three Gulstonian Lectures, is somewhat different; and, as was to be ext pected from the situation in which they were read, and the subject of which they treat, their general tone is more strictly philosophical, and their whole character more exalted and dignified. Their subject is the nervous system; and the first lecture is devoted to a succinct and clear exposition of its general anatomical characters.

On this subject, at once obscure and extremely curious, which has been investigated with so much diligence and research, it was not to be expected that much information either of novelty or of great interest could be communicated in the compass of a single discourse; and it is chiefly to the circumstance of seeing in what manner the mind of Baillie would treat a subject, which occupied the study of some of the most able phi❤ losophers of whom the science of medicine could boast, that the curiosity of the reader will be attracted. Without attempting, therefore, a full analysis, we select only a few topics for observation.

"The dura mater consists of fasciculi of white fibres compacted into a firm membrane. These are more readily observable upon the outside of the dura mater than on its inside, because they are coarser. The internal surface of the dura mater is finer, and of a more shining colour than the external; and here the fibrous structure is less observable, except in particular situations, where coarse fasciculi are interwoven with the membrane, in order to give it greater strength. The dura mater may, in some degree, be considered as consisting of two laminæ,- a coarser upon the outside, and a finer upon the inside; but these cannot be separated from each other so as to leave natural surfaces. A number of fibres are always seen passing between the one and the other, by which they are united.

This description, which is clear and pointed, is correct so far as it goes; but, if we may be permitted to offer an opinion on the representations of an anatomist so careful and so experienced as Dr Baillie, we should say that it fails in not being carried to the proper length. We allude particularly to the

view which he gives of the inner fine lamina, which is undoubtedly to be regarded as the outer or cranial division of the arachnoid membrane. This may be proved in a variety of modes; but is perhaps most easily understood by tracing the dura mater from those points at which it adheres to the inner surface of the cranium, to those at which the several nerves issue from that cavity by the cranial holes. Thus, if the optic nerves be attentively examined at the spot where they enter the optic foramina, the dura mater which covers the bone surrounding these holes will be found to go a very short distance into them, to stop suddenly and be reflected backwards, as anatomists speak, to cover the nervous trunks, and thence to extend along the pia mater. Now the reflected portion here, or the fine inner lamina of Dr Baillic, is in truth the arachnoid membrane which lines the dura mater, passing from it along the nervous chords to the outer surface of the pia mater. In the same manner, if the third pair or oculo-muscular, or fifth or tergeminal nerves be examined at the openings at which they pass through the scull, the dura mater is found adhering firmly round their several margins to the bone by its outer or attached surface, while its inner or free surface turns back on the nervous chords, and thence is continued over the pia mater. In short, these nerves are covered with arachnoid membrane only (always excepting the optic, which has a firm neurilema, generally considered, though on insufficient grounds, as dura mater); and while the dura mater is proper to the inner surface of the scull, and the pia mater to the outer or convoluted surface of the brain, the arachnoid membrane is common to both, and invests not only the outer surface of the pia mater, as is commonly taught, but the inner surface of the dura mater,

Another proof of a similar description of this arrangement is derived from examination of the free or lower margins of the two dichotomous membranes, the falx major et minor, and of the transverse portion of the dura mater or tentorium cerebelli. In the first place, at the upper or convex margin of the great fala, where the veins pass from the pia mater into the longitudinal sinus, it is not difficult to trace the arachnoid membrane from the pia mater along their coats, to that portion of the dura mater which forms the sinus, and vice versa, or the inner lamina of Dr Baillie, from the falx, along the veins to the outter surface of the pia mater. In the second place, we find the lower or concave margin of the falx, connected at the bottom of the middle fissure between the hemispheres, to the pia mater on either side by thin, transparent, filamentous membrane, which is nothing but the arachnoid passing from the falci form process of the dura mater to the outer surface of the pia