Imatges de pàgina
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umbilical cord in the child not appearing as of one just delivered. Some persons look upon the dissimilitude to the parents to be a sign, but this must be very fallacious. Where the supposititious birth depends on the present state of pregnancy, either the proper signs must be examined, or we must wait the event, should those signs deceive us.

"The impregnation of a woman already pregnant, is called a superfœtation. This is either true or false; the former is, when it happens in the womb itself; the latter, when one fœtus is deposited in the womb, the other in the ovarium, the fallopian tube, or the cavity of the abdomen.

"The following requisites are necessary to a superfœtation. 1st. The pregnant woman ought to bear two children, each of a distinct age. 2d. The delivery of these children should be at different times, at a considerable distance from each other. 3d. The woman must be pregnant and a nurse at the same time.

"There have been many doubts about the reality of the superfœtation, but there is no disputing of facts; for which see Graves on Superfœtation, Eisenman's Anatomical Tables, and the Leipsic Memoirs, 1725.

"How this superfœtation is accomplished, is a matter of enquiry, and depends in a great measure on the constitution, or rather the formation of the womb of the mother.

"The last thing to be considered under this head of parturition, is the legitimacy or illegality of births; and this is divided into the time when a child is born after conception, and the conformation of its body. With respect to time, physieally considered, (for laws may be as arbitrary as they please in this respect) all abortions, too early births, children of nine months, and those who are late born, even to ten months, may be considered as legitimate in old marriages. Illegitimate with respect to the time of birth, are all perfect and mature children, who are born in the sixth or seventh month after the celebration of marriage; and all late births, when extended to the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth month, especially if the husband died of a chronic or lingering disease.

"There are many causes alleged to occasion a delay or prolongation of delivery, such as great care and anxiety; some

severe diseases, as violent hæmorrhages, a phthisical disposition, &c., but these, one should imagine, would rather hasten than retard such a circumstance. Experience is the only guide we can follow in such cases; and, for the sake of humanity, the longest time that can be fairly proved, should be the standard to which we should refer.

"With respect to the conformation of the body, all children may be considered as legitimate, who are born at or after seven months; but all abortions are illegitimate. Monsters, likewise, are not to be excluded for any trifling alterations; but where all appearances of human nature are obliterated, it would be wrong to take advantage of such a birth.

“I. Idiotism is, 1st. either born with the subject of it, or appears as soon as the reasoning faculties should begin to expand.

“2d. It is established upon great defects of the memory, and much greater of the judgment, though this is not much attended to.

"3d. Idiots are in general prone to mischief, or to actions over which reason seems to have very little command.

"4th. They have not a proper command over the evacuation of fæces and urine, and drivel at the mouth.

"5th. They have generally strong and hearty constitutions. "6th. They have a peculiar aspect, which describes a vacancy of thought and inattention to any engagement.

"7th. They have little use of speech, and articulate very incoherently.

"II. Insane persons are either furious or melancholic; both of which acknowledge a great imbecility of the mental faculties, and which are derived from hereditary constitutions, attention of mind, violent passions, the terrors of a false religion, immoderate use of venery, poisons of the narcotic kind, some preceding disorders, the suppression of evacuations, indigestible aliments, a sedentary life, &c. But they differ in the following particulars:

"1st. The furious insane are naturally of angry and violent dispositions, in the prime of youth, and of a plethoric constitution, and tense fibre.

"2d. They lose all their natural delicacy of manners, and VOL. V. No. 20.

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become furious, ungovernable, and are particularly affected by pride, anger, hatred, and revenge, and very often intemperate lust.

"3d. They refuse their food, and yet preserve their strength; they scarcely ever sleep, are continually shifting their ideas from one thing to another, bear the cold with incredible patience, and are not easily affected by medicine.

"4th. They have a peculiar look with their eyes, descriptive of violent anger, mixed with a glariness like that of drunken persons; their eye-lids are constantly vibrating, and their hands, and sometimes the whole body, they keep in motion.

"Melancholy persons are,

"1st. Naturally dull, slowly learning, and easily forgetting, and are sad and melancholy, of a phlegmatic temperament, and relaxed fibre.

"2d. When the disorder seizes them they become abject, fearful, fond of solitude, prone to anger, changeable in their opinions and desires, but fixing their attention upon a single object.

"3d. The belly is constipated, the urine is made in small quantities; the abdomen is distended with wind; a sharp acrid matter is discharged by vomiting; the pulse moves very slowly; the aliment is devoured with greediness; the imagination is perverted so as that they are persuaded that they are made of glass, china, &c.; and lastly, and worst of all, they are induced to put a period to their existence.

"4th. Their eyes have a dull, heavy, and stupid look; they seldom move, but continue in one posture a very long time."

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BICHAT.

[From the London New Medical and Physical Journal, for April, 1815.]

MARIE-FRANÇOIS-XAVIER BICHAT was born on the 11th day of November, 1771, at Thoirette, in the department of Ain. He was the eldest son of Jean-Baptiste Bichat, doctor in medicine of the faculty of Montpellier.

Thus fortunately circumstanced, Bichat was, at an early age, initiated in the principles of that science of which he was one day destined to become a distinguished ornament. From his cradle he was familiarized with that language, of which too many neglect the acquirement till called upon to employ it; and the daily application of precepts was presented to his view, ere the precepts themselves had been explained. Thus he possessed all the advantages of that education, which, operating by the force of example, insensibly disposes the mind to a determinate path of labour. That science, which must ere long become the object of severer studies, was first arrayed in an interesting and attractive garb. Upon the powerful effects likely to result from such an education we need not insist: they can be despised only by those incapable of correctly appreciating their magnitude and importance.

We pause not at that early period of the life of Bichat, which he passed in the ordinary routine of juvenile studies. The laurels which he won in rhetoric we shall not enumerate, nor display the honourable distinctions acquired by him in the exercise of philosophy. Interested only in tracing his professional career, we pass on to those maturer years, at which he first exclusively devoted himself to the cultivation of medi cine.

At Lyons he commenced his anatomical labours. The unwearied ardour of his exertions, and the facility with which he surmounted the ordinary difficulties of dissection, soon attracted the vigilant eye of his preceptors. Frequently called upon to assist in the business of instruction, he, on these occasions, first displayed that clearness of idea, which formed, in after years, a conspicuous trait of his excellence as a teacher.

Anatomy, at that period, was little cultivated in France, except as the necessary introduction to surgical studies. In explanation of this remark, we need only to take a retrospective glance of the epoch to which it applies. The celebrated Desault then presided over the healing art: his ardent and enterprising genius had awakened an universal predilection for surgical pursuits. This predilection was signally favoured by the character of the times. Convulsed and bleeding within from the revolutionary struggle, France could only sustain herself by the arm of external conquest: her existence as a nation depended upon her military achievements; and the wounds of her victorious armies on every frontier unceasingly called for those cares and solaces which the hand of surgical science could alone bestow. Hence medicine, strictly so called, experienced a temporary neglect.

Urged on by the general impulse, Bichat at first directed his attention exclusively to the surgical department. He studied the principles of the science, and entered upon their application to practice under M. A. Petit, chief surgeon of the Hotel Dieu at Lyons. His zeal, and the rapidity of his progress in the path of knowledge, soon riveted the confidence of this great and estimable man: but Bichat was formed to shine upon a more distinguished theatre. The capital displayed a field for his genius, and opportunities of cultivation, elsewhere denied: thither he was at length borne by the revolutionary torrent. Obliged, after the siege of Lyons, to quit a soil where youth itself was deemed a crime worthy of the scaffold, he sought in the city of Paris that safety which no distinction of age or talent could find without its walls.

These were melancholy times: nor is it surprising that, at such a period of universal gloom and consternation, Bichat little thought of unfolding, in their native splendour, the uncommon talents which he possessed, and limited his views to the ordinary track which young surgeons in general are destined to pursue. His education finished in the school of Desault; he determined next to seek practice and personal security in the armies of his country.

Mingling with a crowd of pupils at the Hotel Dieu, Bichat,

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