4. If insolation is to be performed on single suffering parts, the rest of the body must be covered with a white linen cloth, and only that part exposed on which the sun-beams are to act.

5. Insolation must be adapted to the different cases: in one case half an hour or an hour is requisite, in others a period of some hours. Again, in some cases the rays of the morning sun, in others the most powerful rays of noon or afternoon are necessary, according to circumstances and individuality. In complaints of the eyes, viz, in amaurosis, Mr. Loebel advises to shut the eye-lids, and to let the sun-beams act through half convex glass, placed upon the eyes thus shut.

Mr. Loebel gives the following directions for a particular machine which he calls a sun-bath. It consists of a box entirely constructed of panes of glass, about three feet long, nearly in the form of a hot-bed, the bottom to be of wood covered with sole-leather, the sides about three or four feet in height, of panes of glass. In the upper part, an opening for the patient to put his head through; on one side a glass door by which to enter; and the bottom must be covered with very dry sand, or kitchen salt, about a quarter of a yard high. This box must then be exposed to the sun, so that the beams, thus more concentrated by the panes of glass, may produce a stronger effect upon the subject enclosed; for which reason there ought also to be glass doors in the machine, that the degrees of heat may either be increased or lessened. The preference of this sun-bath to the usual method of insolation amongst the ancients consists in the more effectual application of the sun-beams upon the naked body, in proportion to the complaint, and according to the will of the physician; and, in case the perspiration of the patient takes place, the risk of catching cold is thereby absolutely prevented. The effect of the heat must also be far more powerful and concentrated than can be the case by pursuing the ancient method. Besides, the ancient method cannot always be applied either in England or the northern parts of Germany, without risk to the patient, on account of the instability of the atmosphere; but the sun-bath recommended here may, with proper precaution, be applied more frequently and with greater confidence.

6. Finally, insolation must not be applied alone, but combined VOL. VI. 3 F No. 23.

with those remedies adapted and prescribed for every form of sickness, as many cases require not only inward medicines, but also outward applications, such as frictions, &c.

Professor Loebel communicates the following remarkable cure of an amaurosis by applying local insolation.

J. S., a native of Dresden, forty years of age, had served from his nineteenth to his thirty-fifth year in the Saxon infantry, and amongst other excesses had profusely indulged in venery. When thirty-seven years old, he suffered much from the gout, but was restored. About two years after, he was seized with nervous apoplexy, which palsied his whole right side: he was also cured of this complaint, but it left a weakness in the organs of sight, which, in 1809, amounted to amaurosis in his right eye; by his left he saw, as he expressed himself, only as through a gauze. In 1810 he consulted Mr. Loebel, who, on close examination, was convinced that this amaurosis, the consequence of a complaint in the nervi ciliares, was connected with a weakness general to the whole organ. He therefore gave him a number of stimulating and nervous remedies internally and locally. Among the rest, very small doses of phosphorus. Under this management, the sight of the left eye was sensibly improved, and the gauze-like film disappeared; but the right eye, notwithstanding the inward and outward application of phosphorus, remained insensible, and the pupilla remained immoveably enlarged, and paralysed. He now resolved to apply local insolation, along with the use of the following prescription:

B. Rad. Valer. Pulv. 3ijss.

Caryophyl. Arom. Dj.
Cortic. Cinnam. 3ss.

Spir. Vin. Gall. Opt. Ziv.

To be taken, a table-spoonful every two hours. For this purpose he fixed a silver wire round what is called a burning-glass, and, by means of ribbons fastened to each side, tied this convex glass upon the eye afflicted with the amaurosis; then caused the rays of the meridian sun to operate through this glass, at first, only for half an hour. He directed the patient to shut his eye-lids during the insolation, and ordered the other parts of the head to be covered with a white linen cloth. The phosphoric infrictions were now laid aside, but the use of the above

mentioned medicine continued. The insolation was repeated twice a-day, for half an hour before and three-quarters of an hour after, dinner. The patient was not suffered to open his eye-lids directly after the insolation, but only an hour afterwards, and then only in a darkened, though not quite dark, room. After having proceeded thus for a fortnight, he found the iris to have acquired more power of motion, and the patient, at the same time, complained of an itching sensation in the afflicted eye, but could merely discern the motion of the hand before the same. Mr. Loebel continued the insolation, and had the satisfaction of seeing his patient in a short time cured of his amaurosis. He could discern every object, and distinguish all his acquaintances that came to visit him: however he could not read any printed or written characters, nor could all Mr. Loebel's art bring his patient so far as to enable him to read a book with his right eye.

From subsequent foreign journals we make the following

extract:

A very ingenious oculist, Professor WEINHOLD, M. D. at Merseburg, has published the following remarks in recommendation of the use of Insolation upon the torpid Retina, in the Jena Literary News, Merseburg, Oct. 4, 1815.

"I fully coincide in recommending insolation through halfconvex glasses, having, in quality of practical physician and oculist, frequent occasions to observe the danger attending the use of the common burning glass. For this reason I commonly cause large burning glasses to be cut into halves, or cover them half with black paper, by which means the dangerous focus is avoided.

Insolation proved disadvantageous in the amauroses accompanied by a heightened irritability, but advantageous in that attended with torpor, or, as the ancients say, sine materia, of course, in the amaurosis the consequence of nervous complaints, unattended with gout, lues venerea, or psora."

Flora of South Carolina and Georgia.

PROPOSALS have been issued in Charleston, (S. C.) for publishing, by subscription, a work on the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia, by Stephen Elliot, Esq. of Charleston. This

work will be published in numbers, which will not exceed ten. The first number will be published in May or June, and the subsequent numbers at intervals of two months each. The price to subscribers will be a dollar each number. The work will include all such plants as the author has seen himself, and also those which have been described by botanists on whose authority he can rely. It will contain, occasionally, observations on the medical and economical uses of the plants described, their popular names, where they can be ascertained, and some notices of the insects which they support, and by which they are destroyed.

The friends of natural history will anticipate with much pleasure the appearance of this work, which is to embrace the productions of a tract of country, exuberant in its vegetation, and highly interesting to botanists. The name of Mr. Elliott is not unknown to the scientific world, and high expectations may be placed on his able execution of the undertaking he has announced. His fondness and zeal for the science may be estimated from the following passage, which we extract from an address delivered before the Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina, of which he is president.

"The study of natural history," says he, "has been for many years the occupation of my leisure moments; it is a merited tribute to say that it has lightened for me many a heavy, and smoothed many a rugged hour; that, beguiled by its charms, I have found no road rough or difficult, no journey tedious, no country desolate or barren. In solitude never solitary, in a desert never without employment; I have found it a relief from the languor of idleness, the pressure of business, and even the unavoidable calamities of life."

Translation of Boyer's Surgery.

DR. STEVENS, professor of Surgery in the Medical Institution of New-York, has undertaken the task of translating the late work of Baron Boyer. This valuable publication is a treatise on surgical diseases, without the operations; for although the title might convey the idea of a work on operative surgery, the author disclaims a pretension to this, and refers to others,

for instruction in the use of the knife. It was originally published in four volumes; but the intention of the translator is to compress it into two. No other modern work, in our possession, enters so exactly into the details of surgical treatment: and although the author's minuteness may sometimes appear fatiguing, his patient description of the phenomena and treatment of this class of diseases assists us in a part of practice where others forsake us.-Dr. Stevens has published oné volume of his translation, containing two of Boyer's.

DR. WILSON of New-Hampshire has lately published “An Inquiry into the Nature and Treatment of the prevailing Epidemic called Spotted Fever." This volume contains about 200 pages, and is divided into three parts. The first part contains a general view of the climate and diseases of the United States. The second is an inquiry into the nature of this epidemic. The third comprises the treatment.

Gum Kino.

In the appendix to the life and last journal of Mungo Park, lately published, it appears that this drug, whose origin has hitherto been unknown, is found, from a specimen sent by him to Europe, to be obtained from a species of Pterocarpus, not yet described by any botanical writer.

DR. GRANVILLE has nearly ready for publication, a translation of that part of Orfila's general Toxicology which more particularly relates to poisons from the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The subject having formed a very immediate branch of Doctor Granville's scientific pursuits, he has been enabled to accomplish his translation with copious notes and additions.

DR. ADAMS is preparing for the press, Memoirs of the Life, Doctrines, and Opinions of the late JOHN HUNTER, founder of the Hunterian Museum, at the College of Surgeons in London. These Memoirs are carefully collected from authentic documents and anecdotes, and also from the writings, lectures, and conversations of the deceased.