exposure. In all, our army has not hitherto lost above 20. Ī have not, however, seen the returns of the garrison battalion, since it has become a second time infected.

Before I conclude this paper, it is proper to observe, that the information I have collected from the native practitioners, is much more the result of their speculation than practice. Their treatment of the plague, according to every account I have received of it, is very simple and summary. With perhaps every inclination to pursue inquiry, and to assist their fellow-mortals, they had certainly but few facilities to encourage them in either the one or other of these offices. Patients were not placed under their care, in the greater number of instances, before the disease was advanced, and when the golden moments for rendering them any assistance had irrevocably passed. As there is no disease in which the maxim of venienti occurrite morbo is of such important application as in this, the consequences of delay in sending patients to the hos pital must have been inevitable.

Not having myself any concern with the department of public health, it is not in my power to furnish any of the numerous public papers relating to the progress of the calamity. This task must therefore devolve upon those whose connexion with that department, or better opportunities, have procured access to these papers. It may, doubtless, be matter of much curiosity to peruse such documents; but from all I have myself seen and learnt, I do not flatter myself with much expectation, that the sum of our knowledge, either upon the nature of the disease, or the manner of treating it, is likely to derive from them any materially useful augmentation.

The deaths occasioned by plague in the several months, are as I have below copied them from the printed notices, viz.

April. May. 3

The average deaths per day being now so very inconsiderable, I would indulge every hope, that a due perseverance in the necessary means of caution may soon finally put a period to our alarms. My only apprehensions arise from the negligence which may take place in the expurgation of infected houses, and the destruction of susceptible articles liable to retain the contagion.

Observations on the Functions of the Brain; by SIR EVERARD HOME, Bart.*

[From the Transactions of the Royal Society of London for 1814. Part II.]

The various attempts (says Sir Everard) which have been made to procure accurate information respecting the functions that belong to individual portions of the human brain, having been attended with very little success, it has occurred to me, that, were anatomical surgeons to collect in one view all the appearances they had met with, in cases of injury to that organ, and the effects that such injuries produced upon its functions, a body of evidence might be formed, that would materially advance this highly important investigation.

Effects produced by an undue pres ure of water upon the Brain. Before I enter into the particular effects that take place when pressure is made upon the brain, by means of water, it is necessary to mention, that sudden pressure of any kind upon the cerebrum, takes away all sensibility, whether made upon the external surface through the medium of the dura mater, or upon the internal parts through the medium of the ventricles, and sensibility returns as soon as the unusual pressure is removed.

Faintness is the consequence of the pressure, to which the cerebrum has been accustomed, being suddenly taken off.

I am induced to believe that pressure, to a certain degree, uniformly kept up, is necessary for the performance of the healthy functions of the cerebrum; and any increase or diminu

The facts contained in this most curious paper, will tend to disturb some of the speculations of the craniologists, and they consequently merit the early attention of all our scientific and other inquisitive readers.

tion of this pressure puts a stop to them. It is asserted, that in addition to this pressure, the pulsatory motion of the blood in the arteries of the cerebrum is also necessary; but the late John Hunter, whose accuracy in a point of this kind is not to be doubted, retained his senses, although the heart had apparently ceased to act.

Although insensibility is the common effect of undue pressure upon the cerebrum, it appears, from what will be stated, that it is not a necessary consequence of undue pressure upon the cerebellum.

The facts which have been stated, appear to point out the use of the water in the ventricles of the brain, and they account for the great variety which is met with in the form and extent of the posterior cornua of the lateral ventricles, their size varying according to the quantity of water which is necessary to keep up the pressure required.

The size of the ventricles would appear to be very immaterial, since, even when they are increased so as to contain about six ale-pints, the functions of the brain are all carried on, and the growth of the body proceeds; but, after the skull is completely ossified, an increase of two or three ounces produces insensibility.

That the ventricles should admit of being increased to so great an extent, without any of the senses or faculties of the brain being destroyed, is in itself a curious fact, and of so much importance with respect to the physiology of the brain, that I shall detail the two following cases, which illustrate one another.

In the one, the accumulation of water proceeded, as it will appear, as far as it could go without materially impairing the organ; it then stopt, and the boy grew up, with all his faculties: in the other, the water continued to increase, the substance of the cerebrum was absorbed, and the faculties of the brain were destroyed.

A boy, at a month old, had so rapid an increase of the size of his head, as to evince an accumulation of water in the brain; and when he was five years old, the head was so large that the parents, judging from recollection, believe that it never after increased. It was so transparent, that when exposed to

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the sun, the rays passed through it as they would through a horn lantern. He was unable to walk. At this age, he caught the natural small-pox, which was so violent as nearly to prove fatal. Upon his recovery, the head showed no disposition to increase, and the child, in all respects, began to improve, and for the first time learnt to walk. At fourteen, the skull appeared completely ossified. At nineteen years, the time I saw him, he was five feet six inches high; his head measured in circumference thirty-three and a half inches. He had grown in the course of the last year about two inches, which is more than he had usually done in any one year.

All the organs of sense are entire; savoury food is agreeable to his taste, but he is moderate in eating. His sight is good, but looking with attention at objects more than half an hour, appears to strain his eyes. His head is so heavy, that the muscles of the neck are unable to support it for many hours together: when he lies down, the head is supported by another person.

He sleeps with most ease on the right side, and the left side of the head appears to the eye to be rather the largest. In lying down, there is, what he describes to be, a momentary thrilling heat felt on the upper part of the brain, in the line of the longitudinal sinus. Lying on his back strains his eyes so much, that he cannot continue in that posture; stooping forwards, brings an oppression upon his eyes. The least weight in his hand, as a tea-cup, makes it tremble; all sudden noises jar his head, and produce giddiness. When he falls down, the jar renders him insensible; at one time this was the case for fifteen minutes, without being attended with any bad consequences. His head aches when exposed to heat. He has had no illness since the small-pox. His sleep is easily broken: he never dreams. He is fond of reading and writing; has a taste for poetry, and can repeat verses out of Cowper. His memory of common things is very good. He never expressed any attachment or passion for women. He is of a mild disposition; but when irritated, his whole frame is in a state of agitation, which, however, soon goes off.

In another boy, the enlargement of the head was perceived at three months, and increased for three years, and then ap