the reviewer; and from the difficulty of their interpretation are among the "iacomprehensibles." The Doctor had so little reserve on this subject himself, and considered it so great a lesson of industry, that there are probably hundreds of young physicians whose despondency he has attempted to relieve, by telling jocularly how he himself started. Industry, perseverance, was his saying to all; and as to the smallness of a man's beginning, the less it was the more it excited his admiration at success.

Dr. Horner* informs his readers that Dr. Physick was particularly intolerant of opposition and of disingenuousness on the part of a patient. The text stands in that relation, followed by some illustrative occurrences. But the reviewer has detached the first idea from the second, and given the following interpretation, "You (Dr. Physick) are very irritable and intolerant of opposition; even the legitimate exhibition of maternal solicitude will cause an outbreaking of your temper." This fabrication of words and sentiments by the reviewer is passed off as the purport of the narrative of an author who has declared, that Dr. Physick discharged most conscientiously his duties to patients, and watched them with a vigilance and anxiety which never remitted till their fate was ascertained, and that he was the most perfect example of a surgeon that this country has ever seen. What, Mr. Reviewer, has become of those sentiments of justice and moderation professed so repeatedly in your production? We will, however, for your special satisfaction, give a key to the phrase which has excited you so much. It is well known to medical men that firmness and decision are the characteristics of a high order of medical genius; and that a physician, thus endowed, feeling the great responsibility devolving upon him, in dangerous cases, must either have his advice observed, or he will not remain in attendance. He considers the alternative indispensable to his sense not merely of dignity but of duty. Now Dr. Physick came up precisely to these conditions; and no one, we believe, in latter years expected him to attend on any other terms, so fully was this principle settled by his acts, as well as by the approbation of his profession. This is precisely the intolerance exhibited in the little illustrative anecdotes introduced by the author of the Notice.

The opposite of this dignified course we shall give in another anecdote. A courtly doctor, when attending one of the princesses, was asked by George III. if he did not think a little ice might benefit her. "Your majesty is right," was the reply, "I shall order some forthwith." "But perhaps it might be too cold," added the kind monarch. "Perhaps your majesty is right again; therefore her royal highness had better get it warmed."†

A mere playful allusion to Dr. Physick's notions of French medicine, is made by the reviewer a ghost of the first magnitude, with the following label on his forehead: "You (Dr. Physick) can never have enlarged views of professional subjects, because you are bitterly prejudiced against a nation (France) [the French] the most distinguished in the world of science, and you will take no hint from her [it]." In rebuke of this aspersion of the reviewer's own invention and language, he furnishes a letter which its illustrious owner did show to the author of the Notice, and did on the occasion express his pleasure at ; notwithstanding the reviewer's assertion that the author of the "Necrological Notice" was not one of those with whom Dr. Physick conversed on the subject. Page 22. + Curiosities of Medical Experience, page 157.

French medicine had made no strong impression in this country prior to the year 1820: it was later even before its value was felt in Great Britain. The allusions to it by the writers and teachers in the latter country, had been generally censorious and disparaging, the evident result of strong national antipathies. The same sentiments had been, owing to our descent, largely incorporated with the medical mind of the United States. It is, therefore, simply an historical fact; notorious, but accounted for by the circumstances of the period of their education, that the older physicians of this country did not appreciate French authorities in medicine; and many do not to this day. Dr. Physick might, therefore, without any disparagement to his general merits, be quoted as under the influence of the impressions of early life on this subject; notwithstanding the evidence furnished by the reviewer's visit, on which occasion he was found surrounded by French medical periodicals. An incidental allusion to English nationality is, also, a subject of crimination, though the point is so fully acknowledged as to have been noticed in all parts of the world, and on many occasions humorously dramatized, even by their own writers.

The grand assault upon the Necrological Notice was reserved for the discussion on Dr. Physick's religious or theological views. It is here that the "brilliantly incomprehensible" shines in its utmost darkness of lustre, according to the reviewer; and notwithstanding his admission of the impenetrable ideas with which the notice was thronged, so as to "defy criticism," and the consequent inconsistency of his reaching a conclusion under such an admitted chaos, he tells us that the "biographer (necrologist) has charged our departed surgeon with infidelity of the darkest character, and at the same time attacked religion itself." The extracts which the reviewer has made, being limited to such as suited his postulate, he has left from the middle of a paragraph the qualifying context: "With strong sentiments of piety, he (Dr. Physick) was constantly in a state of anxious vacillation in regard to the Christian faith." He has afterwards dressed up in italics," he was repelled from it by the invincible principles of his own mind-it was an incomprehensible code to him, and so it continued to the last." We now ask, does the reviewer mean to say that Dr. Physick comprehended the mysteries of the Christian faith? Does the enlightened reviewer himself understand the nature of the Trinity? How a sacrament is effectual for the purpose under which it was instituted? How the unequal lots of men in regard to health and comfort is consistent with justice in the Almighty? How it is likewise consistent with impartiality, that it has been his purpose from all eternity to elect a portion of the human family out of mankind, and bring them to everlasting salvation? Or does he comprehend any other of those august principles, which are intended to define the relation of man to his Creator, and require faith to make them be received. Nothing was said of Dr. Physick's final reception or rejection of Christian doctrine, simply as a matter of faith. The highly estimable and learned clergyman who attended his last moments could give the best testimony on this subject, and declare to what extent his tormenting doubts were solved. The evidence of his relation is certainly to be relied upon for the period indicated; and if applicable at the moment of his death, shows that his difficulties were all removed. This consummation we have reason to believe has been withheld, in the wise dispensations of Providence, from some of the most pious men that ever lived, but who, in the estimation of our reviewer,

ought to be stigmatized with the opprobrious term of Infidel, because a celestial grace, the absolute and free gift of the divinity, has been withheld from them. We refer this topic, however, to the theologians. The facts are notorious, that Dr. Physick's mind, for many years before his death, was in a state of great anxiety; that he talked with every body capable of instructing or comforting him on religious subjects, and that he underwent trials from which the Saints themselves have not been exempted. The principal object of the author of the Notice was, evidently, not to bring out things hidden in a corner, but by displaying such as were well known, to elucidate them by the lights of the original faculties, and of the acquired habits of a great man. Precisely the same course of trial and uncertainty is so common in the history of the human mind, that nothing but the susceptible imagination of the reviewer could have extracted from it the momentous consequences of infidelity, and an attack upon religion, more fearful than that of Paine or Hume. We would say: Compose yourself, Mr. Reviewer; the fair fabric of Christianity, which, when its foundations on earth were yet imperfectly cemented, bore without shock or break, the secession and fierce assaults of a Roman Emperor, will stand without the aid of the eminent men of any country. And, on the other hand, as to Dr. Physick's character, it is of such excellent composition, that it would bear the misconceptions of twenty Necrological Reviewers.

To conclude with this part of the Necrological Notice and its reviewer.—A mind less predetermined than his, on some ground best known to himself, could, according to our understanding, scarcely have adopted any other general conclusions, than that a comprehension of the mysteries of the Christian religion is one thing, and belief in them another; and that if belief awaits the comprehension, it must be unavoidably postponed during life. If on the contrary the grace of belief is conferred, any rational period of life is suitable for its profession and active enjoyment.

The allusion to the directions of Dr. Physick in regard to his interment, and to the feebleness of his last days, has also excited the reviewer against the remarks and explanations of the author of the Notice. We could ask: since when has it become criminal to attribute irregularities of disposition to the languor of illness and of age? Does not the whole chapter of human life, in every age, point out these consequences to great and to small? Does not the sacred volume constantly speak of them? Does not the pulpit resound with them? Can we shut our understandings in any way to them? Is it not a lesson to all of us, that even the gifted Physick yielded to these influences? And can any one attach shame to him for having been bent by one of the most universal laws of his Creator, at the age of three score years and ten,-a period when, to most men, their strength is declared to be but labour and sorrow. The writer of the review has, however, such a singular aptitude at discovery, as to have ascertained that Dr. Horner "attempted to affix a stain upon the memory of Philip Syng Physick," by stating that he, the deceased, like the rest of mortals for generations since the creation, had yielded to his destiny. The reviewer, with his usual candour in the selection of sentences, does not however let us know that there is one* in the following words: "surely to the intelligent no apology can be wanting for the infirmities of age and of illness."

* Page 28.

But an entire vindication of the allusion exists in the circumstances of that period, which, with a very small inquiry or concession of charitable judgment on the part of the reviewer, would have been evident to him.

Dr. Physick's distinction attended him even in the retirement of a sick chamber; and he paid the customary tax, in some of the incidents of the latter being noised abroad, and imperfectly, we may say injuriously, understood by the public, even at distant points of this country. Two large bodies of strangers then in the city-the state convention and the medical classes-participated more or less in the rumours of the day, and of course would convey their impressions throughout the United States. But an explanation of the feeble health of Dr. Physick, afforded an abundant apology for every thing evincive of eccentricity or inconsistency. An enunciation therefore of the fact by the author of the Notice, was a vindication prompted alike by friendship and justice, and not an aspersion. It divulged nothing but what was current in regard to his state of mind and the disposition of his person, and it afforded the best possible explanation of their seeming inconsistency, with the man of genius whom the public had respected so much. Any other view, especially that suggested by the critic on whose animadversions we are now commenting, would have placed Dr. Physick in revolting contradiction with his own long professional life, and have made one class of his observations and inquiries in it a cause for censure, in place of their being, as they are commonly regarded, one of legitimate boast and honour.

We join cordially with the reviewer in deploring the absence of a pen so able as that of Professor Chapman to do justice to the merits of Dr. Physick. His admitted and distinguished talents are both adequate and appropriate to the task; and we look for its accomplishment with interest. Any conjectural comparisons of what this performance would, or will be with the Necrological Notice must be unreasonable and unnecessary. The author of the latter only desires that he may be understood and correctly represented. If, however, the rules of fair interpretation be neglected, his abundant respect for the memory of his deceased friend, Dr. Physick, will, we vouch, prompt him in some form, to put the author of such perversions and his readers right. Of his capacity to do the latter we have some confidence: and would therefore request of the writer of the Brief Review, that both publications may be equally distributed. For this purpose an exchange of copies-we speak advisedly-may be very properly made, without any abatement of the sentiments of comity professed on both sides of the argument. It must certainly be disagreeable to the author of the Necrological Notice, to be held up to the public as the promulgator of sentiments which he never entertained; and still more so when taken in connexion with the last office to a deceased friend, especially after its discharge received the approbation of gentlemen of discriminating judgment, who heard it read, and whose attachment and veneration for the memory of Dr. Physick had been settled by years of probation. The author of the notice may, however, obtain consolation from the reflection that the strange misconceptions of the reviewer being real, and not affected, there are possibly other minds susceptible, more or less, of the same disturbance,— and if there were only half a dozen such, Dr. Horner, we are sure, would think his time well spent in dispelling their illusions, and in asserting that

his fidelity to the memory of a great man is unshaken. He conceives himself to be one of the conservators of that memory; and his efforts, however imperfect, will not be wanting during his natural life to do justice to and perpetuate it after his death; and he believes, moreover, that this memory, if properly preserved now, will make one of the primary elements in the history of American Medicine, when we become old as a nation, and a recurrence is had to past times for the elucidation of the state of that science.

As to the concluding paragraph of the review, we conceive its sentiments to be precisely the deductions from what occurs every where in the Necrological Notice; but, unhappily, their premises either did not reach the eye of the reviewer in preparing his "hastily written production," or perhaps being also among the "brilliantly incomprehensible" parts of the notice, dazzled his gaze into obscurity. A captious accusation of many trivial parts of the Necrological Notice, must be evident to every one who has read it and the Review; but the intentions of the reviewer in these respects we forbear to impugn, as we are disposed to receive in good part his declaration that he has no disrespectful feeling to the author. Still, we must assert, that the construction of every part of the review looks forced and insincere-we would say "sardonic,” in compliment to the reviewer's new light on the meaning of that word, but that our readers might not understand us.

An Essay on Scarlatina. By JAMES CONQUEST CROSS, M.D., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence, in the Medical Department of Transylvania University. Pp. 48: 8vo. DR. CROSS, in the essay as above entitled, begins by criticising, as we think justly, the injudicious division of scarlet fever into three species, viz: scarlatina simplex, anginosa, and maligna; and the common oversight in not making a proper distinction between the primary and fundamental lesion of which scarlatina consists, and the secondary lesions, which convert it from a simple into a complex affection. It must be confessed, however, that it is easier to take note of the secondary lesions than to say wherein the primary one consists. This latter, according to the author of the essay, is cutaneous inflammation. With deference, we think this is rather a prominent symptom, a troublesome effect, than a primary cause. In holding this opinion, one need not contend for the anginose affection being the essential lesion ;-a position which Dr. Cross combats, to our mind, successfully. But although a morbid state of the fauces and tonsils is not a primary element, it may be regarded as commonly a part, or one o the first effects of the primary irritation, which last we believe to be in the gastric and mucous membrane, in the more distinct variety, and in the tracheo-bronchial mucous membranes, in that of a more complicated and aggravated one. As in every membranous disease, so in scarlatina, the irritation may be transferred to the brain; or, to speak less equivocally, act at once with such power on the brain and nervous system at large, as to oppress it beyond reaction and recovery: and death will ensue without our being able to find in the organs or their tissues any adequate evidence of lesion, or of new formations, by which we can assign a plausible reason for the fatal result.

The fact of the presence of lesion in the respiratory passages, and of its