over that of the river may be in part accounted for by the re fiftance of the continent at that point. But, independent of this confideration, cultivation, by producing embaraffments; commerce, by conftructing quays, may have concentered the force of the river within a smaller space, and made it more equal to the counterpoife of its antagonist. Paul's Crofs, the scene of religions inftruction, of political fpeeches, of the artifices of rebels and incendiaries, is alfo defcribed at length, with the se. veral events which have arisen from the fpeeches delivered from that roftrum. The fermons at Paul's Crofs are the best apologies of the modern itinerant field-preachers.

The Herald's college; Chepefide (from chepe, a market); Goldfmith's-hall, and the Guildhall, are the next objects of Mr. Pennant's attention. Before the great fire, Cheapfide was a fpacious and handsome street, ornamented with a cross, a conduit, and a standard; but, even when in a flourishing state, it was not paved; that convenience for many years being to be found in Thames-ftreet only. The Guildhali gives our author occafion to point out the progrefs of luxury in the bill of fare for the entertainment of the prefent king. contrafted with the feaft given at Whitehall, by the economical Henry (need we add the Seventh), at the coronation of his queen Elizabeth. Goldsmith's-hall leads Mr. Pennant to give a short hiftory of the lucrative profeffion of a banker. The adjacent halls, the Manfion-house, and above all the Royal Exchange, and the Bank of England, afford numerous fubjects of remark, which we can only diftantly glance at. Yet, perhaps, while on this fpot, fomething might have been faid of the immenfe dealings in the Exchange, as well as the inviolable integrity of the merchants connected there in traffic of every kind, where the flighteft memorandum is never for a moment questioned. When our author mentioned alfo that the Bank was the happy thought of Mr. James Paterfon, a native of Scotland, he might have added, that its prefervation in the year 1780, was probably owing to the spirited conduct of Mr. Wilkes. The ministry of that day deserved not the reproach which Mr. Pennant has caft on them. A popular party would have been glad to have another opportunity of declaiming on maffacres; and it fhould at leaft be remembered, that their activity, when they found it neceffary to interfere, made ample amends for their dimidity, for their fearing to act against Englishmen, with the weapons moft odious to them, the firelocks of a standing army.

Merchant Taylors-hall, with its diftinguifhed fons, Drapershall, Gresham College, the Excife-office, Crosbie-house, Lombard-ftreet, as well as a fhort hiftory of the Lombards, the Poft-office, Hudfon's-Bay-houfe, and a fhort defcription of the

courfe

courfe of the Thames, conclude this work. If we were minute, we might remark, that we perceive in it a little too much of the Nestorian failing, a narrative old age; too much of what is generally known, with fome (we think) unjust apinions of books and men, fome antiquarian mistakes. Thefe errors do not, however, occur very frequently; and, in an author fo refpectable as Mr. Pennant, whom we have often followed with entertainment and profit, they are fcarcely blemishes. It is his last work too, and the mind, foftened by regret, `muft lofe the harshness which would render its judgments fevere, and forget the delicacy which might rife into faftidioufnefs. The descriptions are in Mr. Pennant's ufual ftyle, forcible, clear," and unornamented. We have already faid that he occafionally adds to our knowledge, and points out objects and facts, which other authors have more haftily and more inaccurately paffed over.

IN

Essays, Medical, Philofophical, and Experimental. By Thomas Percival, M. D. F. R. S. and A. S. Sc. The fourth Edition, revised and enlarged. 2 Vols. 8vo. 125. Boards. Johnson. N thefe volumes are collected the various Effays published by Dr. Percival at different times. We have reviewed them in general as they appeared; but fome are now added which were contained in different publications that could not be regularly and particularly examined; others, which did not fall with propriety under our notice.

The first volume of Dr. Percival's Effays appeared, we believe, in the year 1768, and was noticed in our XXVth volume, p. 105; a fecond edition, much enlarged, appeared in 1772, and occurs in our XXXIIId volume, p. 179. The fecond volume occurs in our XXXVth volume, p. 342, publifhed in 1773. These are now comprised in the first volume of this collection, to which is added the Essay on the Poison of Lead, which was published feparately in 1774, and was examined in our XXXVIIth volume, p. 116. The fecond volume of the collection before us contains our author's third volume of Effays published in 1776, and examined in our XLIId volume, p. 225, with the mifcellaneous papers communicated by Dr. Percival to different focieties and to different journals. Thefe Effays, particularly thofe of the third volume, are greatly enlarged; various facts are added, which maturer experience fuggefted, and a few errors are corrected. 'On turning over the two volumes, however, we perceive fome opinions remain, which farther examination has shown to be erroneous: fome Effays we could have wished to have feen rewritten, or materially altered. Conclufions haftily drawn,

or opinions in the eagerness of youth rafhly adopted, it would have been no difgrace to have abandoned in mature age.

The additions to the mifcellaneous obfervations, cafes, and enquiries, in the third volume of the former edition, relate only to typhus and apoplexy. Thefe feem to be extracts from private letters, and refer to a peculiar epidemic; they are not of general utility or of great importance. The additional Effays which have appeared in the Philofophical Transactions, the Tranfactions of the College of Phyficians, the Memoirs of the Manchester, or the Medical Society, we fhall not again revert to. Of the others we fhall give a fhort account.

The firft Effay, which may be properly styled new to the readers of our Journal, is entitled a Phyfical Enquiry into the Powers and Operations of Medicines, published in the third volume of the Manchester Memoirs, which has not yet been the fubject of our notice. It is a light pleafing Effay, well adapted to furnish materials for a rational converfation. Under." the fecond head, our author arranges medicines which pass into the courfe of circulation entire, or are decomposed by the fluids of the primæ viæ, and being conveyed to diftinct parts, may exert certain appropriated energies. On this fubject, Dr. Percival does not fpeak with his ufual clearness. He feems to fufpect, that medicines may be changed in the circulation, decompounded, and again recompofed in the excretories. On the contrary, we can fee only that they are generally diffused in the circulatory mafs, and again collected, becoming obvious chiefly in confequence of their union or collection. The caufe of their being directed to a particular organ is not well underftood; fomething is evidently owing to a chemical affinity of the medicine with thofe parts of the blood discharged by a given organ, and fomething to the peculiar ftimulus of each medicine; if, for inftance, it is brought in confequence of its being generally diffused to other glands, their action will not be excited; but when once the action of any fecretory organ is excited, all thofe parts of the blood, evacuated by that organ, are immediately fupplied by the temporary floppage of fimilar fecretions. This fpecific ftimulus which our author has explained, will contribute to elucidate many of the difficulties ftated in this part of the paper. Sulphur, Dr. Percival thinks, does not circulate with the properties of fulphur, yet it appears in the excretions of the fkin with its ufual chemical effects. In this reprefentation there is a little error: it circulates pretty evidently in a state of hepar fulphuris, and this is the odour which it communicates; for Dr. Percival, when he speaks of this odour, fhould have recollected, that fulphur alone has fcarcely any fmell. Vitriolic acid may ac

quire

quire phlogiffon, and become fulphur; but it must, in that cafe, be carried into the blood vessels in its acid state, which we have reafon to fufpect is not true: if it enters the blood veffels at all, it most probably is in the fame state of an hepar fulphuris. Again, æthiops mineral, it is faid, has produced a falivation, a proof that the mercury has recovered its powers in the circulation: 'there is no evidence of æthiops entering the blood; and when it accidentally produces falivation, we fhould rather fufpect, with Dr. D. Monro, that it has been owing to the æthiops being made with unwashed flowers of fulphur, which have generally a little loofe acid combined with them. Dr. Percival alfo fuppofes that a new combination of particles takes place, when afparagus communicates its peculiar fmell to the urine: in reality, we rather fufpect this smell to be owing to the decompofed vegetable, whofe oil alone is diuretic.

The ninth Effay we had occafion, many years fince, inciden tally to mention. It is on the oil expreffed from the liver of the cod-fifh, and recommended for rheumatifms. It is a rancid animal oil, highly difagreeable, and in our hands not an efficacious remedy.

The tenth Effay is entitled, Hints towards the Investigation of the Nature, Caufe, and Cure of the Rabies Canina. This Effay was written in confequence of a very humane and judicious paper of Dr. Haygarth's, recommending immediate ablution with cold water, and afterwards with a ftream of warm water from the spout of a tea-kettle, together with the use of a cupping-glafs; and, if neceffary and convenient, the excifion of the part. Dr. Percival, though he joins in recommending the fame plan, feems, a little inconfiftently, to give a different view of the difeafe. He attributes it, or rather feems inclined to attribute it to the nervous irritation, like tetanus, and offers fome arguments in favour of this opinion, which appear more ingenious than folid. It is fufficient to obferve, that in no inftance are there ftronger marks of abforption, and of a fecondary infection. The wound heals, afterwards inflames again, the inflammation extends, a foreness of the limb, if in the lower extremities, frequently in the direction of the lymphatics, comes on prévious so the general fymptoms. In tetanus a foreness indeed remains in the cicatrix, but there is no great previous inflammation, and no evidence of abforption. Befides, our author's opinións may make practitioners -less anxious about thorough ablution or excision. It is enough, in this view, if the part is numbed by the cold, fo as to render it lefs fenfible of irritation. Dr. Percival adds to the ufual applications, the gaftric juice, as a powerful folvent. VOL. LXX. Auguft, 1790,

L

That

That the virus is innocent when taken into the ftomach, is certainly owing to the abforbents not being expofed by wound, for the lacteals do not abforb fo generally as the other lymphatics; to which may be added, the invifcating powers of the Auids of the stomach, and the alteration, in confequence of digestive faculties.

• Miscellaneous facts and obfervations' follow, which are of no great importance. One part of this paper relates fome fuppofed inftances of a retrograde motion of the lymphatics, and a feentingly more quick paffage of a fluid from the ftomach to the bladder, than through the circulatory system. But we think that the cafe fhows, that the colouring matter of the logwood had continued in the fyftem unchanged, and was quickly difcharged by a fudden and violent effort of na ture. Fetid breath, from a ftraitnefs of the cheft, is often, our author tells us, relieved by myrrh and fixed air.

The fecond part of the paper contains fome curious inftances of fympathy between the ftomach and the lungs. The third is on dyfury. Dr. Percival mentions a cafe in which ftrangury, at first brought on by a blifter, was renewed by volatile alkali alone. The tenderness on the neck of the bladder, not uncommon in old people, is relieved, we are told, by rubbing in fo much mercurial ointment as to produce a flight fpitting.

The mifcellaneous obfervations which follow: relate to the ufe of flowers of zinc in convulfive and the hooping-cough, and to the ufe of mercury in hydrocephalus internus. The first medicine is new only in the hooping cough; but it was certainly of ufe in other coughs which were apparently convul five.

The account of the earthquake in 1777, inferted in the twentieth volume of the Annual Regifter, is chiefly defigned to fhow its connection with electrical phenomena and electricity: it furnished many curious obfervations of this kind.

The acid which is feparated from tar, when boiled to drynefs, which is ufually thrown away, may, in our author's opinion, probably anfwer many of the purposes of the vegetable acid its ftrength is faid to be to spirit of vitriol, as one to fourteen; in other words, fourteen times ftronger (in this. there must certainly be fome mistake) than the ftrongest vitriolic acid. This paper was inferted in the New Annual Regifter for 1787.

The obfervations on the conftruction and polity of prisons were communicated to the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine in the fame year. Dr. Jebb had recommended a funk : fence instead of a wall to confine malefactors, as it would admit of better ventilation. Dr. Percival thinks that ventilation