ART. XII. Récherches Historiques et Pratiques, &c.; i. e. Historical and Practical Researches on the Croup, by LOUIS VALENTIN, M.D., &c. 8vo. Paris. 1812. Imported by De Boffe. Price 14s. IN a recent Appendix, we had occasion to mention the premium which was offered by the late ruler of France for the best essay on the subject of Croup. The number of candidates appears to have been very considerable indeed, not fewer than eighty-four having been selected from the general mass as having fulfilled the conditions required by the declaration. The prize was decreed to M. Jurine of Geneva and to M. Albers of Bre men, conjointly; and three other memoirs were selected as deserving particular notice on account of their excellence, viz. those of M. Vieusseux of Geneva, M. Caillan of Bourdeaux, and M. Double of Paris. Of the first and the last of these, we have already made our reports. M. VALENTIN informs us that he was not able to prepare his essay in time to offer it to the judges: but that, having amassed a great quantity of materials on the subject of Croup, he was induced to complete his original plan; and that some learned friends, having seen the manuscript, prevailed on him to publish it. This gentleman's researches compose a volume of between six and seven hundred pages, in which every circumstance belonging to the disease in question is introduced in detail, with much specification and regularity. It contains numerous divisions and subdivisions, and quotations of authorities in profusion; and it seems as if no writer had ever treated on Croup, nor any opinion been broached respecting it, that is not here noticed and examined. It consists of twenty-five chapters, which are again divided into different sections. After an ac count of the definition, distinction, and synonyms of Croup, Dr. V. enters into the history of the disease, and institutes an inquiry respecting its origin and frequency. The second chapter has five sections, in which the following questions are respectively discussed; viz. whether any characteristic description of the Croup has been left by the antients, or by the authors who wrote previously to the last century; whether it was as frequent in the countries of the north, before the middle of the last century, as it is at present; whether it is more common in the northern countries than in France; whether it has become of late years more prevalent in France; and, lastly, the author details his own observations on the subject. Chapter iii., intitled Description and Symptoms, occupies hundred pages, and is subdivided into twenty-seven sections, in which each symptom is made a distinct consideration. We shall enumerate the heads of the sections, in order to shew the minuteness Kk 3 minuteness with which M. VALENTIN attends to every part of his subject-attack of the Croup; pain in the larynx and trachea; swelling of the throat; state of the inside of the throat; difficulty of breathing; position of the head and neck; cough; voice; speech; expectoration; circulation and pulse; fever and general heat; hæmorrhages; state of the face; transpiration; urine; mucus; salivary and puriform secretion; eruptions; oedema; digestion; foulness of the tongue; appetite; thirst; deglutition; vomiting; functions of the nervous system. -Two short chapters next occur on the course and prognosis of the disease, and on relapses; and afterward a more important chapter on the diagnosis, including ten sections, in which the distinction is pointed out between Croup and those affections which it is supposed the most nearly to resemble. These are the inflammatory sore throat; the serous sore throat; (by which is meant the angina aquosa of Boerhaave ;) the inflammatory angina trachealis; (which is also taken from the same author, and is considered as a species of Croup affecting adults ;) the putrid sore throat; the pulmonary catarrh; peripneumony; the acute asthma of children; the chin-cough; the effect of extraneous substances lodged in the wind-pipe; and, lastly, polypi in the same part. The next ten chapters are principally filled with pathological observations and discussions, respecting the age which is most liable to attacks of the Croup, its occasional causes, the diseases with which it is most generally connected, the question whether it be epidemic, whether it be contagious, whether it follows other diseases, &c. &c. The state of the organs concerned in the disease, and especially the nature of the peculiar membranous body which has been observed to line the trachea in this complaint, forms the subject of a long chapter; in which the properties of this body are very fully considered in separate sections, under the titles of its seat and extent, thickness, form, colour, consistence, tenacity, adhesion, nature and texture, and, lastly, its chemical composition. In some other chapters, the author inquires whether this membranous body can be produced within the trachea by any causes except the peculiar inflammation of Croup, and especially by the introduction of irritating substances, either chemical or mechanical. To illustrate this point, he performed a number of experiments on dogs and rabbits; from which it appears that a proper Croup is not produced by any of these causes, although, from some facts which have come to his knowlege, it would appear that domestic animals of different kinds are liable to be attacked by a disease very analogous to it. In the chapter on the treatment of Croup, which occupies. 100 pages, and is divided into 20 sections, the subjects are as follow bleeding, general and local; blisters; the actual cautery; vomits; purgatives; glisters; sudorifics; expectorants; seneka; galvanism; carbonate of ammonia; sulfuret of potash; antispasmodics; mercury; and, as the last resource, the operation of tracheotomy. Four other shorter chapters, on some practical questions relating to the management and prevention of the discase, bring the work to a termination. This brief notice of so long a performance may be said to be scarcely adequate to the merit of its contents, especially when we consider the application and labour which the author must have exerted in its completion: but, while we must allow it to be a performance of value, because it contains much important matter, yet the whole is protracted to so extraordinary a length, and is so overloaded with a profusion of learning, heaped together from all quarters, that (though the materials are very carefully arranged) we consider the volume as of much less use than if it had been only a quarter of its present size. It appears that the author was determined to say all that could be said on the subject, and is totally unacquainted with the valuable art of selection. : ART. XIII. De la Littérature, &c. ; i. e. On the Literature of the South of Europe. By J. C. L. SISMONDE DE SISMONDI, of the Academy and of the Society of Arts at Geneva, &c. &c 4 Vols. 8vo. Paris. Imported by De Boffe. M. DE SISMONDI has already been advantageously known to the learned world by his History of the Italian Republics. The work to which we now call the attention of our readers was composed for the purpose of public recitation to the young people of both sexes, and of the most distinguished families in Geneva; in which city, if the author's partiality for his native country has not blinded him, the duties of instruction are yet considered as a primitive magistracy.' In this city, renowned for domestic virtues, for purity of morals, and for austere decency of language,' he says, he should have reproached himself for having uttered a word, or harboured a thought, which might have excited a blush in his youthful auditory;' and the guarded delicacy of his production is attributed by him to the virtues of those for whom it was intended, - We are, indeed, disposed to exempt this publication from the crowd of idle books written on books, which affect to delineate the progressive literature of Europe, and which too frequently re-echo Kk 4 the the absurdities or frivolities of each other. In truth, it is a sterling work; which, without trenching on the labours of M. Guingene, is an excellent companion and assistant to that learned explorer of southern literature. The history of European letters, from the time of Dante, has been tolerably well understood before the appearance of these volumes: but no publication treats more lucidly or more rationally on that of the Provençal and the Norman literature, which preceded and were perhaps necessary to the more vigorous writings of modern days. Like the generality of his predecessors, the author divides European literature into the southern and northern schools. His plan comprized its development in both characters: but at present his labours have been devoted only to the southern. In ascribing rhyme to the invention of the Arabians, it is to be regretted that his judgment pronounces it to be an ornament and an excellence. That it was an ornament necessary to Arabian poesy we are not inclined to dispute; that the modern European languages demand it in almost all but dramatic poetry, we are as fully persuaded as Dr. Johnson himself; that, when managed with extreme art and a regard to cadence, its monotony may be converted into a source of delight, and the very shackles that it imposes may be worn with grace, we admit: but that rhymed language, under its most fortunate circumstances, can be compared with the free and happy harmonies of Greece and Rome, we deny, and would defend our denial to the last drop of our ink. From the Arabian, which was its cradle, rhyme was carried into the Provençal language; and the Troubadours, whose dialect lent itself with considerable ease to this new restraint, deserve no small degree of credit for their dexterity in adopting it. -- The comtes of Provence,' says M. DE SISMONDI, were not the only sovereigns in the south of France at whose court the langue d'Oc, or Provençal Roman, was spoken, and in whose castles the reciters of events and poets formed in the Moorish school found a flattering reception and assured protection. At the end of the eleventh century, one half of France was governed by independent princes, whose only point of union was the Provençal tongue, which was spoken by all in common. The most renowned among them were the Comtes of Toulouse, the Dukes of Aquitaine, the house of Poitou, the Dauphins of Viennois and Auvergne, the Princes of Orange, the house des Baux, and the Comte de Foix,' &c. To these little courts came, in pursuit of fortune, physicians, astrologers, and tellers of amusing stories; who, by degrees, introduced into the North the knowlege and the arts of Spain. Their ambition confined itself to administering to the amuse ment ment of the great lords; and their recompence consisted in the part which they were permitted to take at feasts and entertainments, which they animated by the variety and vivacity of their songs. To this honourable distinction were often added presents of clothes and horses; they were the pets of the castle; their auditory was composed of warriors and their ladies; and their songs, in conformity with the taste of their hearers, were devoted to love and war. These runaways from the Moors became the instructors of princes; and the latter no longer confined their love of poetry to the admiration of its professors, but the epidemy of rhyme raged with such violence for two centuries, that scarcely a baron or a knight could be found who did not consider it as neces sary to add to his profession of arms the power de trouver gentiment en vers. The name troubadour, trovatore, like the Greek Torns, was conferred on these inventors of a new pleasure; and the blind and wandering inventors of Greece and of Languedoc recited their songs to hearers not dissimilar, and for nearly the same reward. If, however, the Grecian excelled the Languedocian in genius, the latter had the advantage of seeing added to the warlike auditory another of a gentler character. His life was more gay and easy. Love divided his thoughts with sterner business; and the Courts of Love, in which ladies distributed the prizes, infused into his lays a languor and a gentleness unknown to his more severe and noble predecessor. The Grecian Troubadour is said to have understood all that was known in his day. Anatomists allow his science in their profession to be profound: his geography is safe: his delineations of animal and inanimate nature are correct; and, without granting with rigid admirers of Homer that their idol was possessed of all human knowlege, we admit that his learning was in many respects extensive, and, in some, of extreme correctness. The Languedocian, on the contrary, knew nothing. A musical feeling, an ear tuned to harmony, a heart addicted to love and arms, sentiment, and a wish to please, were all that he carried into the field of competition. History, mythology, and geography, were alike unknown to him; and hence the barons, who in their hearts despised the clercs who amused them, were enabled to contend with them in a kind of poesy which did not even suppose or imply the power of writing or of reading their own productions. The Provençal language was, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, adopted by the sovereigns of one half of Europe. The introduction of Troubadours into London, in the suite of the Plantagenets, influenced the formation of the English language, and furnished Chaucer, the father of our literature, with she first models for imitation. Besides the south of France, |