Time does not permit me to offer more than one or two remarks on these Hindu tables, illustrative of the age of puberty and of the age of first pregnancy in Hindu females; nor is this material, as they so entirely agree with and corroborate in all particulars the table of Dr Goodeve, to be found in the body of my paper. The average age of puberty for the 90 instances of Dr Goodeve is 12 years and 4 months; and for the 149 instances in the two foregoing tables, the average age is (omitting fractions) 12 years and 7 months. The whole added together, amounting to 239 instances, gives the average age for the commencement of menstruation as 12 years and 6 months nearly.

The average age for a first pregnancy, calculated from 95 instances supplied in these tables, is scarcely two years higher than the average age of puberty,-a very remarkable and astonishing fact, as it proves the universal prevalence of marriage or sexual intercourse at, or, as it would seem, before the age of puberty.

I must likewise decline (for want of time) attempting to comment on what the reader finds in the Memoir of Baboo Modusoodun Gupta, though this will readily be admitted to furnish various particulars for serious reflection, with reference to the strange and affecting condition of native society in Bengal. The following remarks by Professor Webb, which I extract from his memoir entitled "Pathologia Indica," will, however, be found to supply a better comment than any which I could pretend to offer.

"As my object is the illustration of Indian pathology, I shall

* First birth.

+ Twins.

Died.

a. I understand the ages in brackets (with the exception of the two marked with an asterisk), to be those at which pregnancy, at a very advanced period of life, tock place.-J. R.

consider it my province to give especial prominence to all that relates to INDIA.

"Now, it was upon an ancient theory respecting generation, very much resembling our own, that early marriages seem to have been instituted in India. It was said that if an unmarried girl has the menstrual secretion in her father's house, he incurs a guilt equal to the destruction of the fœtus; that is, according to the doctrine of Pythagoras and the theory of the ovists, all the material of the new ovum, and the ovum itself is formed by the female ; menstruation was, therefore, the loss of the ovum or loss of the fœtus.

"How strange that a doctrine professing such regard for the generative germs should lead eventually to a reckless destruction of the foetus itself. The ovum of the female, passing off unimpregnated, is equal to child-murder. To escape this great sin, children are married; and, at the tender age of eight, nine, or ten, before even this menstruation appears, are subjected to sexual intercourse; which, in some instances, is fatal to them. (See No. 204 of the preparations). By law they cannot marry again upon the death of the boy spouse. Nay, if a Hindu girl be but one only of the 100 wives of a Koolin Brahmin, whose only trade is marriage, she can never be released at his death even, but must always remain a widow. And unless the Government should vindicate nature's law, and do as much to suppress polygamy as polyandry, there seems no hope for them. Thousands of women are thus living in hopeless celibacy, surrounded by institutions and practices, if not wholly subversive of chastity, at least very unfavourable to it; indeed it has no other safeguard than the dread consequences of losing caste.

"The result of this state of things is a fearful amount of crime. Perhaps no country on earth has immolated so many new-born infants as India, nor has any race of mankind more generally practised the abominable art of murdering children when yet in the womb of the mother. The art of producing abortion and all its long train of evils, at once subverting both the order of nature and the end of being, is but too openly practised even now. Whilst the strong arm of a humane government has done much to cleanse the land from the foul stain of child-murder, it has not been able to reach this more common and secret practice of abortion, as many of the preparations in the museum sufficiently attest, and also that the death of the unfortunate mother is no uncommon result of this crime, which in other instances leads to hopeless sterility.

"Climate has generally been the apology for these early marriages, which the more enlightened Hindus call the monster evils" of their country. But it is not common for girls in India

to menstruate until after the twelfth year. I have known instances also in England of its taking place in the twelfth year. Those writers who lived in Europe before the fifteenth century, as the celebrated MICHAELUS SCOTUS and ALBERTUS MAGNUS, speak of the twelfth year as that from which menstruation begiņs. Mr ROBERTON of Manchester has been at much pains to prove that the age when this function begins, which is supposed to mark the commencement of the generative faculty in women, does not vary much in any part of the world; and I am happy to be able to confirm his views as respects this country. Girls even in India do not at once step from childhood to womanhood unless unnaturally forced. Out of a list of 127 Hindu females with which I have been favoured, it began only in six girls under twelve years of age, and, as many of them did not again menstruate until a year after this, which they believed a first appearance, it is probable, as suggested by BABOO MODUSOODUN GUPTA, that a ruptured hymen would better account for that. Thus 81 out of 127 are stated to have been twelve years old or upwards.

"Out of 80 cases thus furnished who had probably been subjected to the influences of impregnation from the age of 9 years, there were only 28 births under 14 years of age; but similar results would perhaps have followed similar circumstances even in Europe, as may be inferred from what occurs in the semi-barbarous conditions of society there, or where the bands of decency and order are rent asunder, during the great revolutions and convulsions of states. Besides what we have seen in the records of the French Revolution, ALDROVANDUS (1642) cites observations that prove births to have occurred in Europe at 8 and 9 years. HOME speaks of births at 12 and 13. Out of 127 cases reported to me of Bengalees, one birth is stated at 8 and one at 9. I have not found that East Indian girls, and European bred girls born in India, menstruate earlier than in Europe, and I have had, for nearly three years, a wide field of observation in the hospitals of the Government Orphan School, (under my charge,) in which there are rarely less than 200 girls. It is not common for menstruation among them to begin until 14. The fact of a first menstruation is always reported to the head mistress, who has never known one single instance of its occurrence before the age of 13. Very often it is delayed till 16, 17, or 18. There is no difference in this respect between European, European-bred girls and East Indian. Between 13 and 14 it is most common. It follows, therefore, that climate has less to do with this function than has been supposed, especially when we add, that instances occur in Bengal of native women having children at 50 and 60. Twins were born as late in life as 58 years in one instance, and 65 in another. In the last case, however, the mother died..

"I believe that even the fact of the existence of this function having been well established, is no proof of the girl being fit to become a mother, that is, to bear a living child. Almost the only instances I have known here, of instrumental labour in European bred females, were from their having married too young. Whilst if we look at the Europeans, Armenians, and Jews, among whom these childish marriages do not occur, we may infer that the Bengalee owes his physical inferiority less to the climate, than to this system of children begetting children. It was long ago asserted by SUSHRUTA, that such unions can only lead to imbecility. And long before him, the Greek sages and lawgivers had acted upon it as an established trut.'

The printed memoir, from which the above has been taken, as also the tables, I received direct by post from Calcutta, and it would seem to be part of a volume of Transactions now in course of publication, the first page in it being numbered 205. I feel myself under deep obligation to Professor Webb for having forwarded me so acceptable, I may say invaluable a present as his packet contained. The above extract is illustrated by several learned notes, which I have been compelled for want of space to exclude. For the same reason also I have had to omit a number of facts scattered through the memoir which would have illustrated my subject. As a specimen of these I may mention the account given of a preparation contained in the museum of the college showing the cause of death in a young Mahommedan female barely twelve years old, who died on the night of her nuptials owing to laceration of the perineum and a considerable portion of the vagina produced by violence inflicted in the consummation of the marriage.

June 2, 1845.

PART III.

MEDICAL INTELLIGENCE.

PHYSIOLOGY.

On the Composition of the Blood in a state of Health and of Disease. By MM. BECQUEREL and RODIER. (Journal de Pharmacie, February 1845.) -These chemists first endeavoured to ascertain the exact composition of healthy blood in order that it might serve as a means of comparison, and, in their present researches, have endeavoured to ascertain how far the proportion of the different elements of that compound fluid are affected by sex and disease. Their researches were intended also to include the influence of age, constitution, and food; but their experiments are not sufficiently numerous to allow them to deduce any conclusions on these points.

As to sex, they found that in man the globules composed 141.1, the fibrin 2.2 in the 1000 parts of blood. In women the globules were in the proportion of 127.2, and the fibrin 2.2 in the 1000 parts. The density of the blood of women was also less than that of man-a circumstance explained by its containing a lesser proportion of solid ingredients. Before the establishment of the menstrual discharge in women, it was found that the proportion of globules in the blood was below the mean of 127 in the 1000 parts; that, during the menstrual period, the proportion varied from 127 to 137; but that, after the critical period of life, the proportion again fell below the 127. These experiments, therefore, accord in their results with those of MM. Andral and Gavarret on the exhalation of carbonic acid from the lungs at different periods of life.

As to disease, it was found that it produced marked changes on the composition of the blood, altering the proportion of all its constituents. Pregnancy was found to increase the proportion of globules, and to a small extent of the fibrin also. Repeated blood-lettings were found to diminish the proportion of globules, but not of the fibrin. A state of plethora was not found to increase the proportion of the globules. In the phlegmasi, the cholesterine and the fibrin were augmented, the albumen diminished. In fevers, the fibrin either remained at its normal standard or was diminished. In phthisis the elements of the blood were little changed; however the globules were found to have lost more or less of their weight, and the saponifiable fats were found diminished to a greater extent than in any other disease. In icterus, the quantity of cholesterine in the blood was notably increased, as well as the other saponifiable matters of the bile. fine, the proportion of albumen was found materially diminished in Bright's disease of the kidney, and in certain diseases of the heart attended with dropsical symptoms.

In

On the Digestion and Assimilation of Saccharine and Amylaceous substances. By M. MIALHE. (Comptes Rendus des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences, 31st March 1845.)-It is now commonly believed that the alimentation of animals is effected by means of three different classes of substances, the azotised or albuminous, the fatty, and the saccharine. The researches of late experimentalists have proved that the digestion of the first is effected chiefly through the agency of the gastric juice, and that of