party cited, and to what particular points they were appliedand in the end to give the judgment of the court, with the reafons which governed the decifion.-In the most trivial report, fuch an attention is neceffary, if the author means to do that duty, which he has voluntarily taken upon himfelf: in a much greater degree muft it be neceffary, when he prefumes to report the determinations of the fupreme and finat judicature' of the kingdom.-Mr. Brown has thought proper to pursue a very different mode of conduct: he thinks proper to report His cafes, from the cafes' of each of the parties litigant; and to throw the printed reafons on each fide into the form of an argument.'-The prefence of the reporter is difpenfed with-Here it may be proper to inform our readers, that on all appeals, or writs of error to the house of peers, each of the parties before argument, has a full ftatement of his cafe drawn up and figned by counfel; that the lords may be minutely informed of the point in difpute. before them.These cases are always printed, and in that form, are diftributed. They not only contain the relation of each party, but a fhort ftate of the proceedings, concluding 'with reasons on each fide, why the decree or the judgment fhould be either reverfed or affirmed. From fuch documents, without any knowledge of the real arguments which were infifted or relied on, at the bar, were thefe Reports compofed ;-for fo it appears from the candid confeffion of Mr. Brown himself; -a confeffion that does him honour.-Though it is neceffary that reasons of fome fort or other should be fo affigned, yet they are, in general, the moft fpecious that the art of counfel can fuggeft:-thofe of greater moment are referved for argument at the bar :-concealed from the knowlege of the other fide, that they may be the more effectual when orally affigned and infifted on. Of SUCH, no notice feems to have been taken in thefe volumes of Reports, for a reafon too obvious to be here repeated. Upon fuch reafons the abilities of a Mansfield, a Camden, and a Thurlow, are daily called into action; from whence arifes those opinions which do honour to the nation, to the profeffion, and to themfelves.-No fuch opinions appear in thefe Reports," though when the cafes, which they relate were decided, men of brilliant, of liberal and difcriminating minds, excited the attention and the praife of their fellow-fubje&ts.-The decifions in thefe volumes, are in general thus reported. • After hearing counfel on this appeal, it was ordered and adjudged, that the fame fhould be difmiffed, and the decree therein complained of, affirmed; and that the appellant fhould pay the refpondent 1ol, for costs'—mutatis mutandis. Whe ther ther fuch reports can be of the greatest weight and moft un queftionable authority'-is not within our province to decidetime alone can determine; they cannot, in our opinion, be ranked with either Raymond or Burrows,-they may, however, difpute the palm, with Mr. Loft's.Every gentleman of the profeffion, must be acquainted with the Cafe of Ashby and White-a cafe which called forth the attention and the ability of almoft every man of confequence in the ftate a cafe which, by being removed into the house of lords by writ of error, not only alarmed and fomented the commons, but raifed a long, a curious, and a violent altercation between the houfes on the point of jurifdiction.'-Though fuch a cafe, in such a stage, must have given rise to all that ingenuity could fuggeft, or learning fupply-though the fpeakers in the houfe of lords were many-equally able, eloquent, and judicious-yet, is the decifion on this remarkable cafe, comprised by this author within the compass of three loose folio pages. Having given a very short ftate of the cafe, he thus proceeds: After hearing counsel on this writ of error, a debate enfued; and the question being put, whether this judg ment should be reverfed, it was refolved in the affirmative, Diffentient, the lords Rochester, Northampton, Scarfdale, Weymouth, Granville, Gower, Abingdon, Guernsey, and Guildford; and the bishops of Rochefter, Chefter, St. Asaph, and London. It was therefore ordered and adjudged that the faid judgment fhould be reverfed, &c.'-Such is this author's report of this memorable cafe, which he is free to confels fcarce any determination ever occafioned fuch a difturbance.' Whether this be a fair and free report', or • merely an abridgment,'-the profeffion must determine. A Sermon preached at St. George's Bloomsbury, on Sunday, March 28, for the Benefit of the Humane Society, inftituted for the Recovery of Perfons apparently dead by Drowning. By Thomas Francklin, D.D. 4to. Is. Cadell. THIS "HIS is one of the beft fermons on a public occafion which we have seen for some time past. The author, who is well known for his abilities in the pulpit, does not, as is commonly the cafe with productions of this kind, tire his hearers with a long detail of observations foreign to the subject, but enters immediately into the defign, management, and advantages of this excellent charity, which he recommends to the attention of his audience in a ftrain of manly and perfuafive eloquence.. As a fpecimen, we fhall give our readers the following animated and ftriking picture, which is drawn in warm and glow 1 ing colours; and which, we believe, they will think with us, fufficiently points out the hand of a master. Suppose yourselves, fays our author, but for a few moments, in your evening walk of rural retirement, on the borders of a delightful ftream, imagine your contemplations interrupted by a strange and uncommon appearance. At a little distance from you behold a busy bustling croud of industrious labourers encircling the body of their hapless companion, whom they have taken, at the hazard of their own lives, out of the neighbouring river, and dragged to the fhore without life or motion. Scarce an hour has paffed fince the object of their grief and attention had left his little circle of domestic happiness in all the glow of youth, health, and vigour. And now behold his body fwoln, his eyes closed and funk, his face pale and livid, his limbs torpid and motionless: without the leaft figns of life they convey him in hopeless defpondency to his own home. The whole afflicted family, fummoned by the dreadful news, are gathered together. Fear, defpondency, horror, and astonishment are spread over every countenance. On one fide, behold the aged mother lamenting her loft child, the prop and fupport of her declining years; on the other, ftands mute and infenfible the afflicted wife, afraid to look up to the horrid fpectacle before her; whilst the innocent little ones, happy only in not knowing how much they have loft, look with amazement at the motionless hands which so lately were ftretched out to embrace them, and wonder at the filence of him who always fo kindly greeted them on his return. Those who would moft gladly take upon them the task of reftoring him are moft unable to perform it; their faculties are all abforbed in grief, their limbs petrified with despair, and all the precious moments which fhould have been employed in the means of his recovery, are loft in fruitless tears and ufelefs lamentation. They hang over him in filent anguish, take their laft farewell in the agonies of defpair, and confign him to the grave. "And now, my brethren, obferve the change. It chances that one of the fons of humanity, (which is but another name for this inftitution) is paffing by; as foon as he kears of the event, he flies, like the good Samaritan, to the chambers of forrow, he ftops the retreating multitude, the idle fons of curiofity, who had affembled but to gaze at and desert him, calls on the moft vigorous and active amongst them, to affift him, applies with zeal and alacrity thofe plain and fimple means which reafon dictates, as the most proper to reanimate, if poffible, the lifelefs mafs, and purfues them with ceafelefs toil and unwearied affiduity, Death, yet unwilling to quit his hold, hold, or relinquifh his devoted prey, ftruggles long and powerfully to detain it seems to smile, as it were, at the ineffectual labour; till at length, fubdued by fortitude and perfeverance, he gives up the conteft. Nature, no longer able to refift fuch repeated folicitations, refumes her fufpended powers, and exerts her enlivening influence. A ray of hope breaks in upon the gloom, and lights up every countenance. Behold, at laft, again he moves, he breathes, he lives. What follows is not within the power of language to describe; imagination alone can fuggeft to you the delightful fcene of wonder and aftonifhment, of mutual joy, tranfport, and felicity.' Such a description as this of a real fact may, in all probability, more fuccefs fully recommend the Humane Society to general attention and encouragement, than all the cold reafoning and argument that could be ufed in its favour. The doctor is, towards the conclufion of his Sermon, equally happy in his pathetic address to the objects who had been faved from drowning; and who, it feems, were affembled at the church, and placed immediately before the preacher. For this we refer our readers to the Sermon itself, the whole of which we recommend as worthy of their perufal. FOREIGN ARTICLES. Caroli de Mertens, M. D. Obfervationes Medica de Febribus Putridis, de Pefte, nonnullifque aliis Morbis. 8vo. Vienna. AT Mofcow, a city containing about 300,000 inhabitants in the winter feafon, feveral catarrhous, putrid, and bilious nervous fevers, had fucceffively and epidemically prevailed in 1768, 1769, and 1770; after which the author of this excellent and claffical performance, happened to perceive in many cadaverous fubjects diffected in the anatomical theatre at the Military Infirmary, evident marks of the plague. This obfervation was inftantly reported to government. Dr. de Mertens, with ten other phyficians, pronounced the disease to be really the plague. Their unanimous affertion was contradicted by the then head phyfician to the city, and another phyfician, whofe authority and credit unfortunately prevailed fo far, that the citizens inftantly paffed from their first anxiety to fecurity and neglect of every neceffary and indispensable precaution though in the Military Infirmary every expedient or caution was taken by the emprefs's command, and entirely fucceeded. The city remained quiet till the 11th of March, when Dr. Yageifky difcovered among the cloth manufacturers for the army, eight perfons actually feized by the plague, and seven just then dead of it; and was, moreover, informed of 117 other perfons who had died of the fame difeafe; and yet two phyficians could not be convinced of its being the plague. Dr. Oreus, who had attended a number of peftiferous patients at Yaffi, was ordered to infpect the bodies; he attefted that it was the plague, and yet was contradicted by the people; to fuch a degree were merchants, dealers, dealers, trades people, and every one who was to inherit the effects of the dead, and prohibited from touching them, on account of the plague, blinded by a moft miferable avarice and selfishness! The cold lafted till the month of April: till June the plague made a flow progrefs; yet in the peft-hofpital of St. Nicolas 200 perfons died of it. But upon the 2d of July it appeared in a private house of the Preobaginsky Suburb, and now this dreadful evil prevailed apace. Many families had left Mofcow, fo that in Auguft it had fcarcely 150,000 inhabitants left; yet of those, about 1200 died daily. The people now implored help, which was at length effectually afforded by the fucceeding cold in October; "after the plague had, within a very few months, fwept away no lefs than 70,000 perfons; and 27,000 of thefe during September only, according to the lifts delivered in to government. Befides the city of Mofcow, forty villages had been infected with the plague. As the Military Infirmary, and the Orphan-house, a building inhabited by 1400 children, fervants and nurses, under the medical care of our author, were preferved from the plague; he is ftrongly convinced, that by timely and ftrict precautions in the beginning, by far the greater part of those who were loft, might have been faved. He therefore undertakes to delineate the plague to every physician in fuch diftinct, trong, and characteristical features, that it cannot hereafter be mistaken even in the very first patient attacked by it, For this purpofe he begins with an accurate account of the three epidemical diseases mentioned in the beginning of this article; and his method of treating them; interfperfed with many judicious and excellent obfervations; and then proceeds to a very full, minute, and accurate account of the plague. From the entire prefervation of the Orphan-house, and of many families of diftinction, he thinks that the infection is not to be fought for in the atmosphere, but that it communicates itfelf merely by immediate contact, and by clothes, linen, woollen, and furniture, infected with its contagious vapour. Young and strong perfons are more liable to be infected than aged and infirm people. In the fecond chapter, he delineates the disease and all its fymptoms, points out the effential difference of the plague from putrid fevers, and contrafts its communication with that of the fmail-pox. In the third chapter he treats of the cure. The whole of his method evinces, that, in the midst of the danger, he has obferved, deliberated, and proceeded with a perfect and admirable calmness, ferenity of mind, and intrepidity. He thinks that the poifon of the plague firft attacks the nerves, and disorders all their functions; this he terms the nervous fate (ftatum nervofum), which is immediately fucceeded by the putrid fate, ftatum putridum), in which the blood and all the humours very foon begin to putrify. None but plethoric and strong people had fevers, and thefe only during the first access of the nervous ftate. In this firft ftate he advifes warm fudorific potions, with acids, camphire, and mufk. In the fecond, the ftrongest dofes of the bark, as frequently repeated as poffible, and mineral acids; yet, judicious and itrong as this method was, he confeffes that it availed little, and only in the milder cafes. The humours of such patients as were strongly affected with the nervous itate, began to putrify within a few hours; and those of others, even before they would confefs their difeafe; for every body endeavoured to diffemble his dreadful fituation, for fear of being abandoned by his friends, VOL. XLVII. May, 1779 C c or |