East and West Indies, are deemed by the College to possess a peculiar conformation of the liver and digestive organs?) Or should we regard the structure of this title-page as tantamount to a notice to East and West Indians-Bad livers repaired, and diseases of digestion cured here!)With Observations on various medicines, and particularly on the improper Use of Emetics. By Arthur Daniel Stone, M. D. Coll. Reg. Lond. Med. Soc. With a quotation from Aretæus, in Greek. I am thus minute, Gentlemen, because, in reviewing the works of masters, it is proper to leave such land-marks for posterity as will enable the accurate historian to collate not only the year and the day, but if possible, the very hour on which their master-pieces were launched into the world. This practical treatise, then, as I happily collect from the context, was ushered into general notice on the 18th of April, 1806. It was with no small degree of surprise, and I must say, not without admiration, Gentlemen, that I discovered, in passing from the title-page to the dedication, that the author of this learned work, instead of endangering his valuable life by adventuring in quest of discoveries on the banks of the Ganges, or the summits of the Leoganee mountains, was very coolly studying the diseases of the East and West Indies on the banks of the Thames. "During upwards of ten years practice as physician L L at Richmond, in Surry, &c." These hints may be regarded as valuable materials for the biographer; and the dedication (to which I beg leave to refer) contains several others, of no less interest, respecting the author, his family, and connections. Passing, by a natural transition, to the Preface, we find it there recorded how the work was withheld from the press, out of delicacy to Dr. Pemberton; how the author was indebted to Drs. Pitcairn, Budd, Caulet, and Austin; and how he attended long and repeatedly at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Should it be thought, that in pausing over these apparently less important matters, I have too long deprived the reader of the pleasure of entering upon the main body of the work, I have only to urge in extenuation, my belief, that at the present moment, when a set of mischievous men are endeavouring to render the College of Physicians odious and contemptible to the public, nothing that relates personally to any individual of that illustrious corporation can be deemed of trivial moment. [To be continued.] TO THE EDITOR OF THE MEDICAL OBSERVER, ON PERUSING A LETTER FROM DR. MAC- Sir, As you have given notice to correspondents that your publication is “ open to both sides of the question," I trust you will allow the following hasty Letter a place in your next number; not that I believe, Mr. Editor, that either Dr. Maclean or I shall instruct or undeceive the public; for be assured the public cares not a pin either for Dr. Maclean, for yourself even, or for me. I have, Mr. Editor, a feeling mind, and in compassion to your inexperience in publications of the nature you are now attempting, I warn you, that you are made the cat's-paw to a whole army of monkeys, who hesitate not to pollute your pages with glaring ignorance and unblushing misrepresentation. I do not conceive that you, as Editor, hold yourself responsible for the assertions in your Magazine, and I am therefore bound to acquit you of fabricating all the extravagancies which therein appear: it nevertheless behoves you to examine a little the matters you introduce, lest you have to complain of more than the present prosecution from the College of Physicians. Dr. Maclean (page 306) has betrayed consummate ignorance (as I believe) respecting the farce of examination (as he terms it) at the College of Physicians: neither is his wisdom more conspicuous in estimating the representation at the superior tribunal (as his phrase is) of the universities. Had Dr. Maclean ever made his debut on the former boards, he would have discovered, that to support with effect a part in that farce would have required (as well as "the knowledge of the application of powers to a liying body,") no inconsiderable acquirements in those collateral branches which he insinuates as useless to a physician. And again: had either university been graced with such an ornament as Dr. Maclean, it would have taught him that the examination of his superior tribunal was far inferior in point of medical scrutiny to that which he is now labouring to disparage. Here then, Mr. Editor, is an instance where you are rendered the vehicle of glaring ignorance. That you are also made the propagator of misrepresentation will for ever stand recorded by the scandalous fabrication of the unfortunate case in midwifery (page 270.)—Sir, scarce a word of that statement is true. That Mr. Williamson should have been arraigned for wilful murder, Į disapprove as much as the most humane of your correspondents: neither can I congratulate Dr. Boys on his Letter: but I repeat, Sir, that not a word of the "bent elbow lacerating the va gina," is true, not an insinuation of the sort was advanced at the trial, where such a circumstance, had it been proved, would have had weight irresistible, the importance of which the friends of Mr. Williamson would have well known how to appreciate. But to return to Dr. Maclean, advise him, Mr. Editor, for you are his friend-advise him to forbear to torture further his sickly imagination, or waste his midnight oil. Bid him be assured, that the scandal, which he has penned with all the earnestness and exultation of meditated and accomplished mischief, excites only in his readers the loud laugh, or the more dignified but silent contempt. Dr. Maclean has voluntarily entered the lists as the medical champion he professes for the public good: I am, however, inclined to attribute his heroism to other motives,-nay, I even shrewdly suspect that he either smarts from rejection by the censors, or that the blind ungrate ful public having hitherto neglected his merits, he takes this method of proving their lack of penetration. If, for the first reason, Dr. Macclean has dipped his pen in gall, I may ob |