the true or sea scurvy, and other putrid diseases, than the boors of Ruffia. During the long and fevere winter feafon of that climate, they are fhut up in clofe huts, never ventilated during fix months of the year; and where the air muft neceffarily be highly phlogisticated, or rendered impure and noxious, by the breath and perfpiration of thofe confined in them. During this time, they live occafionally upon fish or meat, falted; and do not tafte fresh vegetables: being expofed likewife, when they go abroad, to a fevere cold atmosphere; the tendency of which, to produce the fcurvy, is well known. Notwithstanding these circumftances, the Ruffian boors, as we are here told, are ftrangers to putrid difeafes; and they owe this exemption, to an antifeptic regimen, that nature feems to have indicated to them, and which the Author minutely describes in this article.

We have already (in our Review for October, p. 279) taken notice of the Author's reflections on "the late fortunate Attention to the antifeptic Qualities of fixed Air," by Dr. Macbride, Dr. Priestley, and others; and of the ftrong evidence of the truth of their fyftem, prefented to us in the account here given of the antifeptic regimen of the Ruffian boors, and its falu tary confequences. This regimen, which thus powerfully counteracts the baneful influence of their mode of living, confifts in the continual ufe of prepared vegetables in their common diet; one of the principal articles, and that which enters into the compofition of moft of the Ruffian foups, is the four cabbage; the use of which has been already adopted in the British navy. The fecond capital article of this antifcorbutic regimen is, a fubacid liquor, called Quafs, prepared from rye flour, or ground malt; and which is not only ufed as a drink, but likewife, ferves as a fauce to a great number of dishes.

This liquor Dr. Guthrie confiders as an elegant improvement of Dr. Macbride's infufion of malt: for the acidulous tafte makes it highly palatable and refreshing; and probably, there may be a virtue in this fpecies of acidity, which is perhaps the only thing that the fweet infufion wants, to give it all the antifcorbutic qualities of your four-krout, &c.; as it alfo abounds in the antifeptic fluid, fixed air, which recommends the other for medical purposes, and particularly as an antiscorbutic; at the fame time, that the fermentation is permitted to run on until it acquires the acid tafte, which I obferve every one of the efficacious vegetable preparations used in the North, is poffeffed of, and what nearly feems to be the fecret alone, by which thefe people preferve them for a length of time, and put them upon an equality with fresh vegetables, as one would be led to think by their falutary effects.'

The next articles enumerated and defcribed by the Author, are the Ruffian rye bread, fermented with leaven; and prepared

ог

or falted cucumbers, which have the fame fourish tafte with the other articles in the Ruffian antifcorbutic bill of fare; and which feem to have their fhare alfo in the merit afcribed to the regimen at large :-a regimen, the Author obferves, fo confiftent, and uniformly calculated to ward off the disease that their fituation threatens (even when viewed by the test of modern opinion and experience), that the moft enlightened physician of our day could not have prefcribed a better; and perhaps, you may think with me, that there are fome articles in it, which, from their cheapnefs and antifcorbutic qualities, might be permitted to accompany, for trial, their old northern companion, four cabbage; who has, I fuppofe, been met with straggling in Germany, where he was fingly able to make head against all the dangers that their climate threatened; although in our more frigid realms, it requires his whole united phalanx to keep us in fafety.' Article 31. Obfervations on the Scurvy. By Charles De Martano, M. D. Dated Vienna, January 14, 1778.

The writer of this article adopts the fame principles as Dr. Guthrie. He obferves, that during an abode of many years at Mofcow, he found that many gentlemen, merchants, and ftrangers, were attacked by a flow fcurvy, having their gums foft, fwollen, and blueifh, the breath ftrong, and many scorbutic fpots at the legs; whilft it was rare to find among the lower people, either of town or country, a fingle person with thefe marks;'-notwithstanding the many circumftances predifpofing to the fcurvy, to which the latter are subject, and which we have above enumerated.

I was many years,' fays the Author, making these obfervations, and inquiring what it was that could preferve them from the fcurvy, which, on fo many accounts, they ought to have been more fubject to than the others. It appeared to me that, exclufive of the daily ufe of the four cabbage, which I confider as the moft powerful of all prefervatives, they were indebted for their fafety to the great quantity of raw greens, fuch as onions, leeks, radifhes, turnips, peas in the pod, and others which they eat ;'-of which laft, however, we should obferve, by the bye, that they are debarred, according to Dr. Guthrie's account, during a fix months winter. The people of fashion, on the contrary, eat much meat, both falt and fresh; but eat very little bread, and feldom ufe any greens, except a foup made of four cabbage, which they fup only occañonally.

The juice of thefe obfervations is confirmed by the trials which the Author had an opportunity of making in a large hofpital for foundlings, where there were, every winter, feveral fcorbutic patients. When the difeafe was uncommonly ftubborn,

he

he found a very fenfible advantage from giving his little patients their vegetables in a raw ftate, which they had before been accustomed to eat boiled. As an addition to, and an agreeable variation in, the antifcorbutic regimen of fea-faring people, he proposes the use of four turnips, which are prepared in the fame manner as the four cabbage, and are used in Auftria, and feveral other parts of Germany.

ART. II. The Hiftory of Women, from the earlieft Antiquity, to the prefent Time; giving fome Account of almost every interesting Particular concerning the Sex, among all Nations, ancient and modern. By William Alexander, M. D. 4to. 2 Vols. 11. 10s. Boards. Cadell. 1779.

THE

HE title of this work promises a great deal; and the judicious reader will naturally think that the writer of such a hiftory ought to be poffeffed of a variety of talents, which are feldom united in one perfon; that his acquaintance with ancient and modern hiftory ought to be very extenfive; that much judgment is neceffary both in the choice and in the arrangement of his materials; that he fhould have converfed much in the polite world; that he fhould poffefs great knowledge of the human heart, and that coup d'ail in regard to characters and manners which is abfolutely neceffary to the fuccessful execution of fo difficult a task.

Dr. Alexander does not appear to us to have been fufficiently fenfible of the difficulty of his undertaking; if he had, we cannot allow ourselves to think that he would have engaged in it. He has, indeed, collected a great variety of particulars relating to the treatment, the employments, and amufements, of the fair fex, in different ages and countries; and made fome pertinent obfervations upon them: but his remarks are generally trite, and often frivolous; his materials are injudiciously felected, and badly arranged; the language is inelegant throughout, except when he adopts the language of others. In a word, we are at a łofs to know what clafs of readers can receive any great pleasure from the perufal of his Hiftory. His views in publishing it we fhall lay before our Readers, in his own words:

As the following Work was compofed folely for the amusement and instruction of the Fair Sex; and as their education is in general Jefs extenfive than that of the men; in order to render it the more intelligible, we have ftudied the utmost plainnefs and fimplicity of language; have not only totally excluded almost every word that is not English, but even, as much as poffible, avoided every technical

term.

As we perfuade ourselves, that nothing could be more perplexing to the fex, or to which they would pay less attention, than a long lift of authors on the margin, to fhew from whence we have derived our information, and as a great part of fuch lift would refer to books in other languages, we have entirely omitted it, and contented

tented ourselves with fometimes interweaving into our text, the names and fentiments of fuch authors as have more peculiarly elucidated the fubjects we were investigating,

We have not vanity enough to recommend our work to the learned; they must have met with every anecdote related in it; but as the generality of the fair fex, whofe reading is more conhned, now spend many of their idle hours in poring over novels and romances, which greatly tend to mislead the understanding and corrupt the heart, we cannot help expreffing a wifh, that they would fpare a part of this time to look into the hiftory of their own Sex; a history, which we flatter ourfelves will afford them no irrational amufement; and which will more gratify the curiofity of the female mind in whatever relates to themselves, than any thing that has hitherto been published.

We do not mean by this to praise ourselves; we fubmit with the utmost diffidence to the judgment of the Public. If we have any merit, it is only in collecting together, and prefenting in one view, a variety of anecdotes concerning the fex, which lay fcattered in a great number of authors, ancient and modern, and not within the reading of the Sex themfelves; recourfe to larger libraries might have made thefe anecdotes more numerous, and better judgments would have fele&ted them more judiciously; on thefe accounts, none can be more fenfible of the imperfections of the Work than we are, but we hope our candid Readers will make fome allowances for our having trod a path which has never been attempted before; and the Ladies, we flatter ourselves, will treat us with fome indulgence, when we affure them, that we have exerted our utmolt abilities to put their history into the mcft engaging drefs, and to mingle pleasure with inftruction."

That the Doctor has exerted his utmost abilities, we readily believe; and we hope and truft, for the credit and honour of our fex, that every man, who undertakes to give pleasure to the ladies, will do the fame. We queftion much, however, whether ladies of tafte and genius will be fatisfied with this Gentleman's exertions, or entertain any high opinion of his abilities; he neither has, indeed, the fuaviter in modo, nor the fortiter in re, which all ladies expect from thofe who enter into their fervice. It is really furprifing that it fhould not have occurred to the Doctor, that fuch ladies as are likely to have an opportunity of looking into his hiftory are tolerable judges of compofition; that they expect fome degree of elegance both of fentiment and diction in fuch works as are defigned either for their amusement or their inftruction; and that they must neceffarily be fhocked with the frequent mention of the very grofs and indelicate customs which prevailed in nations that were either only emerging from barbarifm, or very little advanced in civilization. Of what ufe, of what importance, can it poffibly be to the British fair, to be informed how the Maflagetæ, the Aufi, the Lydians, the Scythians, the Bactrians, the Phoenicians, the Ægyptians, &c. &c. treated their women? or to be made ac

quainted

quainted with the cuftoms and ceremonies which prevailed among them?

The sketches our Author gives of the character of the American, African, and Afiatic women, he allows to be imperfect; the vicious and the difagreeable, he tells us, are too frequently predominant in it; and almoft the whole of their character, he acknowledges, may be comprized in unremitted endeavours to fatisfy a voluptuous appetite. If this be the cafe, can it poffibly tend either to the inftruction or the amusement of the fair fex to dwell fo long as our Hiftorian does on fuch difagreeable fubjects?

But we now proceed to lay before our Readers a few extracts from this work, that they may be enabled to judge whether the cenfure, which, in justice to them, we have thought ourselves obliged to pass upon it, be too fevere or not.

In his first chapter, the Doctor gives a short sketch of the Antediluvian Hiftory of Women; and here we meet with the following very inftructive note:

Various and ridiculous are the fables related by oriental writers concerning the creation of the first pair. We fhall only mention a few of thofe propagated by the Jewish Rabbies, whofe ancient legends equal, if not furpass, in abfurdity, even those of more modern ages.-God, fay they, at first created Adam with a long tail; but afterward, on confidering him attentively, he thought he would look better without it: refolving, however, not to lose any thing that he had made, he cut it off, and formed it into a woman: and hence the fex derive their low and inferior nature. Others of them tell us, that the first human being was created double, of both fexes, and joined fide to fide: that God improving on his original plan, feparated the male from the female part, where they had been joined together, and made them into two diftin&t beings; and that from hence arose the perpetual inclination of the fexes to join themselves together again.'

It muft, undoubtedly, be very edifying and amusing to a fair reader, of taste and delicacy, to be informed, especially by an old, nafty Jewish Rabbi, that Adam was at firft created with a long tail; and very comfortable, to be fure, to be told that God Almighty himself cut it off, in order to make Adam look the better. We leave the ladies, who are, certainly, very competent judges of the beauty of the human figure, to make their own ftrictures on this paffage.

The Doctor proceeds, very methodically, in his fecond chapter, to treat of female education; and here he confiders the obftructions to education in the carly ages-the fource of education-the progrefs of education and arts.-He talks about the Ægyptians, the Phoenicians, the Babylonians, the antient ftate of Europe, the Greek women, the Roman women, the women

of