Most medical elections are decided, on the Continent, by the Concours, a system greatly superior to the English mode of election, but, for the reasons before given, we can have little hope of such a procedure among the purseproud and bull-headed governors of British hospitals.

Mr. Lee has found that the number of foreign practitioners, who now adhere to the purely "expectant measures in the treatment of disease," is very limited. This has resulted, in a great measure, from familiarity with English practice.

"The majority, however, appear to be reverting to the principles of the Medecine Hippocratique, which, less disposed to generalize and to consider inflammation present in most diseases, adopts less energetic measures, the practice being regulated by the actual condition of the symptoms in individual cases. The hospital practice of men professing opposite opinions is not, however, so different as might be expected from a perusal of their works. A pharmaceutical combination of drugs is not frequently employed, the remedies being mostly of a simple nature, and except the difference in regard to sanguineous depletion; tisanes, decoctions of simple herbs, mucilaginous and sweetened beverages, joined to tepid baths and enemata, are the medical means mostly used in the great majority of cases." 17.

Those who are of the Broussaian school-and the number is very considerable proscribe purgatives in fevers, and, consequently, deprive themselves of one of the most effective weapons in warring with the disease! Mr. Lee is surprised that the diffusion of pathological knowledge in France has not led to more energetic practice, and endeavours to account for the circumstance in the following manner.

"This may, however, in my opinion, be accounted for by two circumstances; -first, that post-mortem lesions, the effects of disease, are often mistaken for its cause, and consequently the treatment must be less successful than one based merely upon the observation of symptoms; and secondly, that a routine line of practice is adopted against disease; sufficient attention not being paid to the various modifications the same disease may assume in different persons, the patient's constitution, strength, and other peculiarities of his case, not being sufficiently taken into account." 21.

If they mistake effects for causes, which we fear that a great many of them do, it does not speak much for their sagacity or reasoning powers. We do not deny that active remedies are often too freely used in this country; but the waste of human life resulting from the inert practice of the Continent is a far greater evil. Mr. Lee is rather mistaken in supposing that auscultation and percussion are at such a low ebb in this country. We have the means of knowing, that these important means and modes of investigation are becoming almost general in this country. The following passage will shew that the Continent is not the best school for the young surgical student.

"In several points connected with the treatment of surgical disease, there exists a material difference between England and the Continent. The most prominent of these consists in the absence of internal treatment in most surgical cases, by which surgery is reduced to little more than the application of dressings and the performance of operations. In France and Italy, scarcely any medicine is given in surgical diseases, the means of relief being principally restricted to rest, the general and local abstraction of blood, local applications, including counter-irritants, and, lastly, operations; which are often performed in cases where their necessity would be obviated in England by the timely adop

tion of measures influencing the progress of the local disease, by their operation on the general system." 24.

This striking defect vitiates the whole of the Continental surgical practice, and not only so, but it often renders their writings useless-sometimes even injurious to British practitioners. Medical men of clinical experience, in this country, have long been aware of this circumstance, and hence the very feeble avidity with which Continental writings, especially surgical, have been and will be received in Great Britain.

"With respect to mercury, its action on the capillary system of vessels, and consequent effects in controlling inflammatory disease, do not appear to be known, or, if known, are not appreciated by continental practitioners. Calomel is generally considered merely as a purgative, and is occasionally administered as such. One writer in a popular work even says, that this medicine is almost entirely inert, and may be given in large quantities with impunity."

25.

Mr. Lee remarks, that his observation in Continental hospitals induces him to believe, that numbers die annually there after accidents and operations, from starvation and constipated bowels, who, in this country, would certainly be saved by proper treatment. He has seen repeatedly patients allowed to go six, eight, and ten days, without ever being relieved in their bowels!!

They have, at length, abandoned the practice, or rather the theory, of healing wounds by granulation instead of adhesion-but it is only in doctrine, for, what with starvation and awkward dressing, adhesion by the first intention is a rare occurrence.

We cannot advert to Mr. Lee's account of the individual institutions in France, Italy, and Germany. Those who intend to visit them will take the book with them-and to others the account would not be very interesting. Mr. Lee has judiciously selected some clinical cases, illustrating the practice pursued at the different hospitals, and he has wound up the volume with an amusing account of animal magnetism and homœopathy-those precious effusions of German ideality, for which we refer our readers to the work itself. Mr. Lee is again on the Continent in search of knowledge, and will doubtless enrich the next edition with some valuable gleanings.

ON THE POWER, WISDOM, AND GOODNESS OF GOD IN THE CREATION OF ANIMALS, AND IN THEIR HISTORY, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS. By the Rev. W. Kirby, M.A. F.R.S. &c.

In our last number, we endeavoured to give a concentrated coup d'ail of Mr. Kirby's first volume, closing our sketch with the subject of vermes. The second volume, or thirteenth chapter, opens with cirripedes and crinoideans. The first of these, denominated lepas by Linné, and known in this country by the general name of barnacles, have a soft body, protected by a multi

* Dict. de Médecine et Chirurgie Pratique. Art. Mercure.

valve shell-are without eyes, or any distinct head-have no locomotion, but can fix themselves to various substances. Their body, which has no articulations, is enveloped in a kind of mantle, and has numerous tentacular arms, fringed on each side, and issuing by pairs from jointed pedicles. The mouth is armed with transverse toothed jaws, and furnished with feelers. They have a spinal chord, gills for respiration, and a heart and vascular system.

"These animals roll up and unroll their arms with great velocity, thus creating a little whirlpool, that brings to their mouth an abundant supply of animalcules, an action which Poli compares to fishermen casting a net."

3.

The functions and instincts of the cirripedes are little known-" of this we are sure that they were His work who gave them being, and assigned them their station in the world of waters."

CRINOIDEANS.

In the deepest abysses of the ocean, there probably lurks a tribe of plantlike animals, abounding in genera and species (judging from their fossil remains) which are rarely seen in a recent state. Only three or four specimens of these animals have been taken-and one of these is in the Hunterian Museum in London. They differ from the cirripedes in having no jaws, and, therefore, their food, whatever it is, must be animalcular or liquid.

The 14th chapter brings us to a "great branch in the animal kingdom, which, in its higher tribes, exhibits Divine Wisdom, acting in and by the instincts of creatures, small, indeed, in bulk, but mighty in operation, in a way truly admirable." This group is the

CONDYLOPES.

The distinctive characters of this class or group are easily given. The animal is locomotive-body consists of two or more segments-legs jointed. This section of the animal kingdom has been subdivided by Cuvier and Latreille into three classes-crustaceans, arachnidans, and insects. Dr. Leach, taking the respiratory organs for his guide, begins with three primary sec、 tions-those that have gills-those that have sacs, and those that have trachea. Out of these he forms five classes-crustaceans, arachnoidans, acarines, myriapods, and insects. Our author finds it exceedingly difficult to determine the class which ought to be regarded as forming the first step in an ascending series. He begins, however, with the crustaceans. Like the infusory animalcules, these form a kind of centre, sending forth rays to different parts, some inclosed in a bivalve shell, others assuming more of the crustacean form, &c. There is no one character common to the whole of this remarkable class. Generally, however, they are covered, not by a calcareous and solid, but by a horny and thin integument. One group of them lives by suction, and is parasitic upon other aquatic animals-most of them, however, masticate their food, but without the aid of maxillary legs. This class our author divides into two orders, according as they inhabit fresh and

salt water-the Branchiopods and Pacilopods. The first order mostly frequent stagnant pools, where they move about with great rapidity. They are regarded as predatory, and to make the infusory animalcules their prey. Some of them are supposed to be herbivorous. Like the infusories, they have the power of revivescence, after death by the drying up of the waters in Summer. Latreille thinks that some of them have the power, after drawing in all their organs, of hermetically sealing their shells till the return of moisture! It is in this class of animated beings that we first discover the remarkable phenomena of metamorphosis or moulting. These creatures fix themselves to some substance at hand, and then move about their limbs and the valves of their old shells till they loosen and cast off their exuviæ. These moults follow each other at an interval of five or six days, and it is not till after the third moulting that the animal acquires the reproductive faculty. Hitherto form after form has appeared on the stage of animal existence, each distinguished by characters indicating an elevation in rank and station; but here we are got among animals which, at different periods of their existence, assume a higher tone of character, and become endued with organs calculated for a more extended range. Sometimes from being purely aquatic, the animal (cyclops for example) becomes a denizen of the earth and air-or of air, earth, and water at the same time! It is doubtful whether the higher orders of the crustaceans undergo a real metamorphosis, or only change their shells annually. Insects, we know, do not increase in size after their last change.

"Do not these successive changes in the outward form, functions, and locomotions of so many animals, preach a doctrine to the attentive and duly impressed student of animal forms, and their history-do they not symbolically declare to him, that the same individual may be clothed with different forms, in different states of existence, that he may be advanced, after certain preparatory changes, and an intermediate interval of rest and repose, to a much more exalted rank; with organs, whether sensiferous or locomotive, of a much wider range; with tastes more refined; with an intellect more developed, and employed upon higher objects; with affections more spiritualized, and further removed from gross matter?" 27.

The power of multiplying in these animals is almost incredible. It is calculated that one female cyclops, after one fecundation, (which serves for several successive generations) will, in six weeks, prove to be the progenitrix of four thousand five hundred millions of other cyclops!! An animal of the present order was observed by Captain Koetzebue in such myriads, that the sea exhibited a red stripe, a mile long, and a fathom broad, produced by a species which individually was scarcely visible! These powers of multiplication, however astonishing to us, are, no doubt, given to these creatures for wise purposes. They supply food, in abundance, to a variety of other creatures, both above and below themselves on the scale of existence. turn, they prey upon other and much more powerful animals. The gigantic whale, the sagacious dolphin, the terrific shark cannot defend themselves against these minute parasites.

In

The next order includes all the marine entomostracans, and is quickly dismissed by our author. The first section consists of a single genus, typified by the MONOCULUS POLYPHEMUS of Linné. In the West Indies it is well known as the KING-CRAB. Like the cirripedes, they have no distinct head

but they have a long angular tail, simple and compound eyes, &c. Some of them, in the eastern seas, grow to two feet in length. Its most remarkable part is the tail, shaped like a stiletto, and so sharp at the extremity, that it will easily pierce the body of almost any animal with which it comes in contact. Its legs are armed with pincers, and it is evidently predaceous upon small animals. The second section differ from the others by the manner of taking their food. They are parasitic upon the cetaceans, fishes, some reptiles, and crustaceans, whose juices they imbibe by suction. They often attach themselves to the gills of these animals.

CRUSTACEAN CONDYLOPES.

We are now come to a class where the organs of locomotion assume a more perfect construction, in some measure resembling those of the vertebrated animals. The developement of the locomotive organs, from the lowest to the highest order of animals, will form the subject of a distinct chapter in a future part of the work, and therefore we shall very briefly touch upon

it here.

The anterior legs are strictly arms, terminating in a dedactyle hand, furnished with a kind of finger and thumb, by which it seizes its prey. This is the chela or claw. of the lobster and crab. This structure is particularly fitted to their wants and situations. A hand like ours would be an incumbrance rather than an useful instrument of prehension, where great strength is concentrated into two fingers instead of being distributed over five. In some

of the crustaceans, however, the claws are very small; but this is made up by number, and though they cannot lay hold of large animals, they can seize, at the same moment, several small ones. The shrimp, prawn, pandle, &c. afford examples.

Aristotle, long ago, noticed a crab found in Phoenicia, under the name of the horseman (Hippous) which he said ran so fast that it was not easy to catch him. Ollivier found that this account was true—at least of those he saw on the coast of Syria-and Bosc found a species in Carolina which he could scarcely overtake on horseback, and shoot with a pistol. Another kind of land-crab has a most extravagantly large claw on one side, and a very diminutive one on the other. When he retires into his hole, he leaves the large claw in the passage, to prevent the entrance of intrusive visitors. They will dispute a carrion with vultures. They only enter the water to lay and hatch their eggs. There is another kind that remain in burrows for months together, and are exceedingly prolific, though preyed upon by numerous animals, as otters, bears, birds, tortoises, &c. The HERMIT-CRABS have naked abdomens, unprotected by any hard crust; but God has given them a compensating instinct. They search about till they find a univalve shell fitted to their size, which they make their habitation and carry about with them. They thus, as it were, clothe themselves with the cast-off garments of other animals. This is the first instance we find in the creation of PHYSICAL HYPOCRISY-of assuming the aspect of a different animal-perhaps one that is known to be innoffensive, in order that the ASSUMER may deceive the unwary, and entrap his victim! There is a genus of crabs or rather lobsters which quit the sea at night, and ascend the cocoa-nut and other palm trees, to seize the fruit. This species is gigantic. Among the larger species is a