The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, for the Year ...

OBITUARY; with Memoirs of Earl of Devon; Adm. Hon. Sir A. K. Legge,
K.C.B.; Major-Gen. Sir J. Campbell, K.C.B.; Capt. Sir C. M. Schom-
berg, K.C.H.; Capt. W. Kempthorne, R.N.; Mrs. Cook; Edward Roberts,
Esq.; Mrs. Olivia Serres; Mrs. Hemans; George Pinckard, M.D. ;
Richard Sharp, Esq.; Sir George Tuthill, M.D.; William Blanchard.

CLERGY DECEASED, 97.-DEATHS, arranged in Counties.....

Bill of Mortality-Markets-Prices of Shares, 103-Meteorological Diary-Stocks 104

Embellished with a coloured Engraving of the ALTAR WINDOW at ST. DUNSTAN'S in

the WEST; a View of the MANSION at PUNCKNOWLE, Dorset, &c.

MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

We cannot afford to insert, at the expense of more important matter, the reply of LANCASTRIENSIS to the strictures of M. D. on Baines's History of Lancashire. We have read over his letter attentively; and do not find that he is able to deny the inaccuracies pointed out by M.D., stating only that this censure is trifling, that unfair; some passages are not fully quoted, and the deficiencies of others will be supplied in other parts of the work. The only two points he notices of the least public value, are, that "Bredmed" (Brightmet) occurs as a place of moorland in the Survey of the manor of Manchester, 16 Edw. II. (MS. Harl. 2085) and that the MSS. of Mr. D. Rasbotham furnish the authority for Mr. Baines's statement that the dissenters assembled at Winter Hill.-We are desired by M. D. himself to make these corrections to his letter. The sentence in p. 595 about Farnworth church should be withdrawn. In p. 599, a. 16, for Dr. Whitaker read Mr. Whitaker; and in line 41, after the 28th read Sept. In p. 595, b. 10, for p. 66 read p. 46; b. 16, for p. 40 read p. 46; and b. 22, for p. 54 read p. 45. In p. 598, a. 16 from bottom, for p. 29 read p. 89.

The Ode to Greece, and the poetry sent by H. and M. B. S. are declined.

We do not recollect the communication of the CHURCHMAN who has fined us with a heavy postage.

The articles on Archery by F. O. and X. Y. in the course of the season.

FEDERARIUS inquires if any collector of Literary Prospectuses can inform him of a Prospectus of Rymer's Fœdera. The first volume of that work came out in 1704, but an ample announcement of it appears at the end of the preface of the Mantissa Codicis Juris Gentium Diplomatici, published by G. G. Leibnitz in 1693, which leads to the supposition that a Prospectus was printed and circulated abroad long before any part of the Fœdera was published. To that author's notice of the intended work is added a descriptive title, which is prolix and very curious, and is said to be larger than what had been before made known to the world; qualis autoris missu ad nos pervenit. Any new particulars respecting Rymer will be very acceptable.

J. S. is informed that the medal which Pinkerton attributed to "Jehan Strangewayes, Escuier," appears from the Medallic History of England, 4to, 1802, pl. III. to be the same with a silver counter struck in Normandy in the reign of

Henry VI. the field of which is on one side divided by cross bars into four quarters, each of which contains a dolphin embowed, and in the centre is this shield of arms:-a bend, and on a canton a mullet; legend + JEHAN STANLAWE ESCVIER; on the reverse, two shields of the arms of France and of France and England quarterly, each under a crown, legend + TRESORIER DE NORMENDIE. The similarity of the above coat of the bend, canton, and mullet to others belonging to the names of Stanlow and Stanley, shows that the connection of the name of Strangeways with this medal has arisen entirely from a misreading or misapprehension.

R. H. begs to ask if any of the readers of your Magazine can inform him whether there are in existence descendants of its original publisher, Mr. Cave, or in whose possession the papers of that worthy man and zealous friend of literature now are. He will feel exceedingly obliged for any information on this subject sent to him at the office of the Gentleman's Magazine. He wishes further to inquire of those who possess information concerning the worthies of this city in the last age, whether they can afford him any particulars concerning that ingenious and remarkable man Lewis Paul, the patentee of spinning by rollers in 1738 and 1758, and of the carding cylinder in 1748, in addition to that given in Mr. Edward Baines's "History of the Cotton Manufacture" lately published. Paul appears, from the entry of his patents, to have lived at Birmingham in 1738 and 1748, and at Kensington Gravel Pits in 1758; and he calls himself "gentleman." He was a most ingenious and enterprising man, but, like the greater number of inventors, he derived little benefit from his inventions. Any particulars of his life, where he died, and whether he left descendants or papers, would be exceedingly acceptable, and would help to clear up a disputed point of much interest in the history of mechanical science and the useful arts.

ANTIQUARIUS inquires for any notices relating to the pedigrees of Burton of Ingerthorpe, Ward of Newby, and Pigot of Clotherholme, all in the immediate neighbourhood of Ripon; they were, he believes, all extinct or removed before the first Visitation of Yorkshire was taken.

W. H. inquires who was the Judge or Serjeant-at-Law who adopted the motto, "VIM TEMPERATAM" on his ring, about the year 1779 or 80. Was it Thurlow, Wedderburne, or Jack Lee?

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE,

FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. BY S. BOSTOCK, M.D. 1835, 8vo.

THE origin of the science of Medicine, like the origin of almost all other sciences, is lost in the darkness of remote antiquity. As disease commenced with the gift of life, so the means of removing or alleviating it must have been among the earliest efforts of those who felt, when they first drew vital air, the weakness and tenderness of humanity. The slow progress of their early inventions, and the limited nature of their resources and remedies, we may, without being wide of our aim, conjecture; from what we discover among the vagrant tribes of the desert, the remote dwellers in the ocean-isles, and all the uncivilized people of the globe. The art of Medicine probably commenced with the accidental discovery of the virtues of plants; and a decoction of vegetable substances was taken internally, or applied to the surface of the body, as the nature of the disease suggested. A lacerated limb from a contest with "a lion or a bear" who had attacked the fold; a kick from a Centaur who was opposed in forcibly carrying away the most beautiful damsel of the village; or a fall from the back of that venerable and primæval animal, who from time immemorial has been the patient servant and the humble friend of man ;-such wounds called for some chirurgic aid; and after much thought, and many a bold hypothesis, and extensive inquiry, and repeated consultations, it was resolved to try the effect of binding and bandaging the wounds with vegetables of balsamic properties, and excluding the external air. Sometimes a bolder practitioner would recommend the patient to be wrapt in the hot skin of the offending animal; or to have the oxydated metal of the spear scraped over the wound, as an antidote to the effects of its destructive fang:* or when a chieftain, who went out to battle in the morning, Diis similis, came back with a headache from the effects of a hot and dusty campaign, and the weight of his sevenfold shield; and when a capacious bowl of strong dark wine, frequently filled and emptied, was found to disappoint the well-founded hopes of the suffering giant, the Briseis of the tent, with her handmaids, was sent to herbalize on the banks of the river

* There is no mention of poisoned weapons in the Iliad; but in the Odyssey, lib. i.

For thither also had Ulysses gone

In his swift bark, seeking some poisonous drug
Wherewith to taint his brazen arrows keen,
Which drug, through fear of the eternal gods,
Ilus refused, &c.

From many circumstances the Odyssey appears to be a poem of later date than the Iliad. That part of the last book, subsequent to the meeting of Laertes and Ulysses, seems different in style of expression and thought from the rest, and added by one who belonged to another age.

for some fresh and cooling diaphoretic. A few trifling mistakes might be made and overlooked, and when some obstinate and clumsy leech sacrificed to his ignorance the flower of an army or a court, and

Πολλὰς δ' ἱφθίμους ψυχὰς ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
Ηρώων,

his blunder was laid on the shoulders of remorseless Pluto and the inexorable Fates but in this manner a few simple remedies were discovered, perpetuated and improved, and the loss of eyes, fingers, and other small servants of that prince the Body, was submitted to with a good grace; just as our friends the Americans are contented to enjoy the beauties of their transatlantic ladies, without the unnecessary ornament of teeth. During this period we may presume that the gentlemen of the Old World were much engaged in cultivating their farms, or drilling their militia, or hunting tawny lions; and the art of Medicine consequently fell into female hands, as among the wild Indians of the present day, the squaws perform all the offices, and practise all the branches of the healing art and certainly they seem to have attained to no despicable knowledge of the virtue of herbs; and can brew a caldron of enchantment,* as powerful as even the fair daughter of Jove possessed.

A drug most potent to suppress or grief
Or anger, and oblivion to induce

Of all past evil. Whosoe'er his wine

So medicated drinks, he will not bathe

His cheek all day with trickling tears, although
His father and his mother both were dead.

But passing over this first stage of the art, we are informed, on the best authority, that Egypt was the country in which Medicine was cultivated with such success as to have afforded a subject for a distinct profession. The Pharaohs were priests, as well as kings; the sacred fillet of the sacerdotal dignity was interwoven with the crown; and leech-craft probably was in the hands of the servants of Isis, who were in exclusive possession of a knowledge, which they had gained at the expense of some thousands of premature departures to Hades. The great high-priest of On was probably head-barber-surgeon to the monarch and his imperial consort, under whom a band of well-instructed tonsores medici were duly licensed to practise in Memphis, Thebes, and the surrounding cities. Homer informs us, that Egypt, more than any other country, possessed herbs of the most powerful virtues, and also more skilful physicians to administer them.

-For Egypt teems

With drugs of various powers; salubrious some,
With wine received, and some of deadliest kind.
Nor dwells on earth a race that may pretend

In healing arts equality with them,

For they are genuine sons of Pæon all.

How much of their success was owing to magical incantation, and the early arts of empiricism, we cannot say; but from what we read in the

In the Odyssey, book xix, the wound of Ulysses is cured by enchantment:

Around Ulysses his companions throng'd,

With dext'rous promptitude his wound they bound,
With chanted charms restrained the sable blood, &e.

book of Exodus, we may presume that they were no mean proficients in deluding the senses; and probably had their metallic tractors, their tarantula dances, their animal magnetism and their touching for evil, in as much repute as the moderns.

Herodotus observes that each disease had its peculiar class of practitioners, as dentists,* aurists, chiropodists, doctors in gout, and doctors in calculous disease, and doctors in cutaneous eruptions; the Scudamores, and Batemans, and Curtis's of the children of Cush; and that these separate occupations were transmitted from father to son, as they are in Persia, and in other parts of the East; so that we may presume that any travelling gentleman who has accidently found himself in Persia, and thereby acquired a title to the Travellers' Club; and who has had the pleasure of being bled, bathed, kneaded, and trimmed by the professors at Ispahan or Tabriz, may form a not inaccurate notion of their learned predecessors under the dynasty of Osymandyas. Of their profound knowledge of anatomy we have an indisputable proof:-one of their observations is, that there is a particular nerve that goes from the heart to the little finger of the left hand for which reason, the Egyptians always wore rings on that finger, and dipped it in perfumed ointment. The other is, that it is impossible a man can live more than a hundred years, because there is a constant increase and diminution of the hearts of all sound persons, whereby their age can be judged. The heart of an infant weighed ten drachms, this weight increased annually by two drachms a year, till they came to the age of fifty: from which time it gradually decreased till they came to an hundred; when for want of a heart, they necessarily died.

If however the Egyptians were not very skilful in assisting the living, we must own that they proved themselves to be beyond any hopes of rivalry, most cunning artists in the preservation of the dead. The beauty, delicacy, and duration of their embalming processes, still claims the admiration of all. In thus giving to death the semblance of life,† and robbing him of half his prey, theology and surgery went hand in hand. It was the creed of the children of Misraim, that the body was not doomed to be destroyed or dissolved, or to lose its spiritual tenant, when this transitory dream of threescore years had passed away but that it was to be renewed in other states, and for immeasurable periods of remote existence. Thus every possible art was employed in preventing the elements of decay from reaching it; in fighting against the rat, and the worm, and the beetle; in preserving it from the humid breath of the Nile, in its cedar-cases and rock-hewn sepulchres; and in rendering it impassable to the attacks of

'It is generally considered as a whimsical circumstance, that the Egyptians should have had particular physicians for different disorders, even for the tooth-ache, to which they were subject from chewing green-sugar-canes.'-Pauw on the Egyptians.

+ See a curious passage on this subject, quoted from Herodotus by that entertaining but rash writer De Pauw, in his history of the Egyptians and Chinese, i. p. 44. Alas! the history of modern times (see different Memoirs of the French Revolution) has rendered little doubtful the enormities hinted at by the father of history. The time necessary for the process of embalming a body was seventy days.

On the opinion of the Egyptians concerning the future state of the soul, much information will be found in Mosheim's notes to Cudworth's Intellectual System, cap. iv. That the former body, after death, should be resumed, was an undisputed tenet of belief. Suicides were assisted by the ceremony of oscillation in passing the Styx. Small figures were suspended with cords, and kept in swinging motion, to help them over a traject they had made more difficult.

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