is more true of it now than ever it was before. I claim for it no exemption from the imperfections and frailties of all human concerns. I am very willing to admit that the personal conduct, and the scientific, professional, and general. attainments of medical men have not always come fully up to the requirements and obligations of their position. Knaves find their way into all places, and

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

Snobbishness, in the comprehensive meaning which Punch, in his genial pages of mingled wit and wisdom, has recently given to the term, is not confined to the other ranks and occupations of life; so much of it as appertains to the liberal professions has not been monopolized by the pulpit and the bar. Ignorance every day puts on the mask of knowledge, and pompous inanities pass current for the profoundest wisdom. Huge piles of stubble and rubbish are every year heaped up into shapeless ugliness, the fond builders believing all the while that they are rearing temples of adamant and marble, and the work goes bravely on to the admiring sound of braying asses, mistaken for the music of eternal fame. Sangrados ply the lancet and warm water in Paris as they did in Salamanca, and Sganarelles reason in the pages of the last journal as they do in those of Molière. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all this, it is none the less true, that the obligations of the world to the science and the art of medicine, as they have been taught and practiced, are beyond all measurement or estimate. There is no process that can reckon up the amount of good which they have conferred upon the human race; there is no moral calculas that can grasp and comprehend the sum of their beneficent operations. Ever since the first faint dawn of civilization and learning, through

"The dark backward and abysm of time."

they have been the true and constant friends of the suffering sons and daughters of men. Through their ministers and disciples, they have cheered the desponding; they have lightened the load of human sorrow; they have dispelled or diminished the gloom of the sick chamber; they have plucked from the pillow of pain its thorns, and made the hard couch soft with the poppies of delicious rest; they have let in the light of joy upon dark and desolate dwellings; they have re

kindled the lamp of hope in the bosom of despair; they have called back the radiance of the lustreless eye, and the bloom of the fading cheek; they have sent new vigor through the failing limbs; and finally, when exhausted in all their other resources, and baffled in their skill-handmaids of philosophy and religion-they have blunted the arrows of death, and rendered less rugged and precipitous the inevitable pathway to the tomb. In the circle of human duties, I do not know of any, short of heroic and perilous daring, or religious martyrdom and self-sacrifice, higher and nobler than those of the physician. His daily round of labor is crowded with beneficence, and his nightly sleep is broken that others may have better rest. His whole life is a blessed ministry of consolation and hope. Sweeter than the water-brooks to the panting hart are his kindly voice and his affectionate smile to the lonely presence of sickness, sorrow, and pain.

"At his approach complaint grew mild,
And when his hand unbarr'd the shutter,
The clammy lips of fever smiled

The welcome that they could not utter."

With these convictions of the powers and capabilities of our art, and of the general worthiness of its practitioners, we may rest assured, if we are only true to ourselves and to it, that the regard in which it has been held since the days of Hippocrates is in no danger of being permanently withdrawn. We must needs be visited occasionally by medical as by manifold other delusions; but it is a part of their nature always to pass rapidly away and to be soon forgotten. They are like fluttering eddies that cross the main current of the Mississippi or the Amazon; to him who happens to be caught in the tiny whirlpools, they may seem like the majestic tide of the great river itself, but they are soon inevitably lost and swallowed up in the rush of its resistless waters, and appear, to be seen no more. No, there is no danger. The work of two thousand years is not to be demolished by the noisy clamor of a few penny trumpets. As certainly as there is truth in the foregoing inquiry, will the present feeling of distrust towards our science and our art pass away. The ancient confidence will be restored; the old love will come back again, truer and deeper for the transient and passing estrangement. The constellations themselves-Orion and Pleiades-are sometimes apparently blotted out from the

heavens, by the gorgeous glare of rockets and other artificial fireworks, kindled with sulphurous and nitrous compounds; but, courage! my friends, and a little patience, the show will soon be over; the parti-colored flame that would rival and eclipse the planets is even now dying away; all that will remain of the blazing illumination will be some noisome gases in the atmosphere, and a few burnt out sticks on the ground; but lo! still looking down upon us, with their dear old smile of affectionate recognition, from their blue depths in the firmament, undimned in their brightness and unchangeable in their beauty, the everlasting stars.

ARTICLE III.

A Dispensatory, or Commentary on the Pharmacopoeias of Great Britain (and the United States); comprising the Natural History, Description, Chemistry, Pharmacy, Actions, Uses, and Doses of the articles of the Materia Medica. By ROBERT CHRISTISON, M. D., V. P. R. S. E., President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Edinburgh, and ordinary Physician to the Queen for Scotland. Second edition, revised and improved, with a supplement, containing the most important new remedies; with copious additions, and two illustrations. By R. EGLESFIELD GRIFFITH, M. D., author of "A Medical Botany," etc., etc. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard, 1848. (From the publishers.)

The above is an excellent work, of 1008 closely printed octavo pages, and will bear a fair comparison with any other dispensatory. This we might expect from the known reputation of the author, who has devoted much of his attention to this branch of medical science. We have carefully examined this work, and can cheerfully testify to its merits. It is, as it purports to be, a "commentary on the pharmacopoeias of

Great Britain (and the United States); and an extensive one it is, too; every article being treated of as fully as its importance demands. It gives in detail the natural history, chemistry, and commerce of medicines. All articles of acknowledged utility as medicinal agents are included in the work. Those medicinal plants indigenous to this country, and which did not find a place in the author's edition, have been added to this, by the American editor. The preface to the American edition says: "It will be found to contain very full and copious observations on the various preparations, not only of a theoretical, but also of an eminently practical nature. In the present edition, all the processes of the United States pharmacopoeia have been added; and, also, a description of such articles as are recognized in that work, but not noticed by Dr. Christison, with an account of their preparations and uses. Many useful tables and other matter have likewise been added from Redwood's edition of Gray's supplement to the pharmacopoeias."

All the late improvements in the pharmacopoeias of Great Britain, as well as of the United States, are included; and, also, all that is new in the history, chemistry, and therapeutical application of medicines.

This edition is rendered still more valuable by wood-cuts of medicinal plants, apparatus, &c., with which it is copiously illustrated. It is in all respects brought up to the improvements of the present day.

We can heartily recommend this work as being one of the very best of the kind, and well calculated to supply the wants of the profession.

It makes a good text book for the student, and a reliable work of reference for the pharmaceutist and practicing phyJ. McL.

sician.

RTICLE IV.

Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Physic. By JNO. BELL, M. D., Member of the American Medical Association, and of the Med, Society of the State of Pennsylvania, Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, &c., &c.; and by WILLIAM STOKES, M. D., Lecturer at the Medical School, Park Street, Dublin, Physician to the Meath Hospital, &c., &c. Fourth edition revised and enlarged, in two volumes, pp. ; Philadelphia: Ed. Barrington & Geo. D. Haswell, 1848. (From the publishers, and for sale by J. Keene & Bro., Chicago.)

The fact of there being a demand for a fourth edition of Stokes' and Bell's Practice is sufficient evidence that the work is highly favored by practitioners and students as a book of reference and text book.

It contains, doubtless, as much if not a greater amount of useful and correct information than any other systematic work of the kind.

H.

ARTICLE V.

On the Cause and Treatment of Abortion and Sterility; being the result of an extended Practical Inquiry into the Physiological and Morbid Conditions of the Uterus, with reference especially to Leucorrhaal Affections, and the diseases of Menstruation. By JAMES WHITEHEAD, F. R. C. S., Surgeon to the Manchester and Salford Lying-in Hospital. pp. 368. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard, 1848. (For sale by J. Keen & Bro., Chicago.)

This is the fullest and clearest account of these affections that has come to our notice. The work is full of interest to the practitioner, as embodying a large mass of physiological