in this manner escaped disease. The inhabitants observing this, made use of the same covering, and never thenceforth suffered from their old complaints."

Thus we find that the common experience of mankind has always pointed to the true means for the preservatives of health-though ŝo few have had the good sense to profit by that experience.

METHOD OF PRESERVING MILK.

M. KIRKOFF, a Russian chemist, who discovered the means of converting starch into sugar, has made numerous experiments upon milk, the result of which is that it can be preserved for any length of time. The process is as follows:-Fresh milk is to be slowly evaporated over a moderate fire, until there remains only a dry powder; this last is to be put into a bottle, which is to be closely corked; when required for use, it is sufficient to dissolve a portion in a suitable quantity of water. The mixture will have the taste and all the properties of milk.

THE patrons of the Journal of Health are respectfully informed that exertions are making to bring up the Nos. to the regular days of publication, after which they will be published punctually. Improvements, of a pleasing and instructive nature, will be made at the commencement of the 4th volume. An elegant portrait of Dr. Benj. Rush will embellish the first No., and numerous engravings will be added to the additionally interesting matter.

As the present volume is about closing, the attention of agents is requested to receiving payments and remitting-and, where agents are not already appointed, to take the agency and use their exertions in behalf of

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CREDULITY, though not regarded by writers on metaphysics as a primitive emotion or mode of feeling, is so much a part and parcel of human nature, that we can never, for a moment, lose sight of it while studying this latter. It ought, perhaps, rightfully to be viewed as the result of the emotion of wonder, or love of the marvellous, and of faith or veneration. In regard to the possession and display of these two last mentioned faculties of the mind, we find great differences among men. Sir Walter Scott, to draw our examples from illustrious names, has both of these in strong relief. Voltaire was deficient in both-lamentably so in the latter, or veneration. Doctor Johnson was a man of faith and a lover of the marvellous, but by no means credulous. Indolence, by which the mind is indisposed to inquire into the realities of narratives and assertions; and ignorance of the facts, in disproof of the reputed marvellous and wonderful, are the chief supports of credulity, which we desire on this occasion to separate from the innate emotions or sentiments already adverted to; for although blended of these, it could not find aliment, or would only be allowed scope in works of imagination, but for indolence and ignorance. Now, when we reflect on the very large and liberal allowance of these negative qualities to mankind, we cannot be surprised that credulity is so common nor at the regular succession of cunning knaves, who live and fatten on their VOL. III.-47 371

credulous fellow-men. Of all the means by which credulity is most readily and fully worked upon, abundant promises of bodily or spiritual welfare are ever the most successful. To the promise no objection can be made, provided the conditions be equitable, and offer no infringement on moral and physical laws. But when future happiness is promised to the unrepentant sinner, and health and longevity to the glutton, the drunkard, or the debauchee; when restoration from disease is to be obtained by agents inert of positively mischievous, and which we know from experience are incapable of producing the promised effect, then may we truly exclaim, that quackery is at work with credulity, and that people are, their eyes and ears open, and of their own freewill, as it were, destroyed morally and physically.

Even danger, which usually rouses individuals to action and sharpens their intellects, is, in the beginning, insufficient to stimulate a community. Too indolent to inquire or make exertions— often ignorant of the channel which they ought to take, a people will often be found to intrust their lives, in war, to a boastful soldier, rather than take the trouble of seeking out a modest and retiring veteran. And, in times of pestilence, an audacious quack will obtain credence for the reputed efficacy of his nostrumswhile the skilful physician, too conscientious, and withal too proud to obtrude himself upon public notice, is for the time diregarded; perhaps he is accused of ignorance because he does not blazon forth his knowledge at the street corners, or keep a standing atvertisement of his skill, disinterestedness, moral worth, patriotism and Christian charity in the newspapers of the day.

Among innumerable instances of credulity, the most remarkable and most generally known to our readers, are the search after the philosopher's stone, by which all the baser metals were to be promptly transmuted into gold, and the elixir vitæ or cordial, by the use of which health and life, for an interminable period of time, were to be insured. Next to these comes a belief in the royal touch as a cure for scrofula, and the protecting power of amber necklaces-pieces of camphor hung round the neck, or thieves' vinegar against pestilential diseases. These are not exploded errors. Many, who read a lottery advertisement, are persuaded that a ticket will prove to them a philosopher's stone and make them masters of immense wealth. The nostrums of quacks are still puffed and vended, as, some of them, not only sovereign cures for specified diseases, but for all those which can by any possibility affect mankind. No matter about the truth of the promises thus held forth. The people believe, and that is enough for the purposes of the advertiser and speculator on their credulity.

At this present juncture, we read and hear of so many specifics, as either preventives, or cures of the cholera, that one must be greatly surprised, if a hundredth part of what is related

of them were true, at our having any case of this disease to contend with. There has not been, indeed, many new nostrums invented on the emergency-but then, as compensation, new virtues have been offered to the old. A Panacea, which was to cure every thing, could not, of course fail, from the showing of its proprietor and his hired eulogists, to cure cholera. Accordingly, it was announced in due form by advertisement, by puff direct and oblique, as the preventive to this disease. But in order that the public might have two pegs to hang their faith on, we were soon told that his Vermifuge was the remedy. The fate of this nostrum is rather a peculiar one. It would seem, from the "Communications" on the subject, to have been more successful in every other disease, in which chance or ignorance has led to its use, than in cases of worms, for which it is professedly intended. As a mixture of an irritating kind, productive, on very good testimony, of alarming, if not fatal results, by exciting inflammation of the stomach and bowels, this vermifuge is not, one would reasonably suppose, a preventive of cholera, at a season when we are cautioned against taking a dose of the commonest medicines without great care and circumspection. Next comes that regularly summer puffed remedy against the bowel complaint of children,-now suddenly converted into a remedy for cholera. Its wonderful powers, already attested by a no inconsiderable mortuary list of children, are now to be as signally displayed on adults.

Then follows the Thomsonian, Botanical, Steam-herbalist, who promises, for the moderate compensation of thirty-seven and a half cents a week, to insure his subscribers against the cholera. Who can resist an appeal so full of modesty and disinterestedness!

But it would be an endless task to attempt an enumeration of the remedies for cholera, advertised and vended at this time. They are all offered in the same amiable spirit with our thirtyseven and a half cent per week doctor: and are only paralleled by the plague quacks and mountebanks in London, an account of whom is given in this number.

Some physicians, men of learning and of considerable benevo lence, are not entirely blameless during the present season of agitation and alarm. They are a little too prone to generalize advice, useful in the particular case in which it was first given, but liable to be strangely abused by its universal application to persons, most oppositely constituted and circumstanced. The recommendation to drink port wine, is one of these errors on which we have animadverted in our last number. They are, also, too ready to give their sanction, for the sake as they say, of tranquillizing the minds of their patients, to newspaper remedies which have the alleged recommendation of the old women's "yerb teas," viz. that they do no harm if they do no good. The

very way to keep their patients in a state of continued agitation and anxiety, is for physicians to humour them in these peculiarities; for as there is a constant succession of sovereign remedies, there must be, in course, successive trials; one week our stomachs are to be burnt with spices, another with port wine; to-day we are to be panaceaed, to-morrow vermifuged; one day dosed with Thomsonian, botanical medicines—and another tickled with three drops of spirits of camphor. But a short time ago woollen or flannel belts next the skin, were all the fashion-now Burgundy-pitch plasters are the rage. Against absurdities of all kinds, affecting health, we hold it to be the bounden duty of a physician to remonstrate and to discourage his patients and friends from giving into them. Let him tell all inquirers to behave themselves, to avoid gossiping, to attend to their personal and family affairs, and to only draw on the apothecary with a written recipe from their chosen medical adviser.

IMAGINARY HYDROPHOBIA.

It has long been our opinion that two-thirds, at least, of the cases reported as hydrophobia, in the human subject, were either instances of tetanus, or of disease of the nervous system, produced entirely by the influence of the imagination. The most singular instance of purely imaginary hydrophobia, occurred, a few years since, at Guy's Hospital, in London, which places, in a clear light, the dreadful effects produced upon the body by the mind, when strongly impressed with fear or horror. The case to which we refer occurred in the person of Samuel Raffles, the head waiter at the Dover Castle Inn, Lambeth. He was brought to the hospital labouring under every symptom usually described as presenting itself in hydrophobia. He foamed at the mouth, yelped and barked like a dog, and, on water being presented to him, he was immediately attacked with repeated spasmodic convulsions of the most violent character. He was immediately bled copiously by means of cups; a most strict examination was then made to ascertain whether there were any wounds or scars about his body, which might have been occasioned by the bite of an animal; but, after the minutest search, none were discovered. By pursuing the "soothing system" he was entirely relieved, and in a few days was suffered to return to his family. His attack was attributed by his medical attendants to the effects of extreme fear and horror, occasioned by his having read an account of a case of hydrophobia, in which, a short time previously, the injection of water into the veins had been practised, without effect, the patient dying in the most horrible agony.