320 Monthly Medical Report. [SEPT. 



other extremity of the great alimentary lube, has for its source atmospheric moisture, 

 with cold. In one instance, the dysenteric symptoms were so urgent as to call for the 

 loss of blood from the arm ; but the remedy which the Reporter has hitherto found 

 efficacious is the combination of calomel with opium. Three grains of the former with 

 one of the latter, repeated at intervals of eight hours, have afforded the greatest relief. 

 Castor-oil has proved a valuable auxiliary, superior to Epsom salts. 



This month has proved very fatal to consumptive patients. A high range of atmos- 

 pheric heat is more oppressive to them than even severe cold ; and we may readily 

 judge, from the facts which are now passing before our eyes, how highly injurious it 

 must be to send patients, in the last and confirmed stage of this disorder, to a very hot 

 climate; such, for instance, as that of Naples or Malta. There they sink rapidly under 

 the debilitating effects of excessive heat ; and their last moments are thus unassuaged 

 by the sympathies and solaces of surrounding relatives and friends ! 



GEORGE GREGORY, M.D. 

 8, Upper John Street, Golden Square, Aug. 21, 182T. 



MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



THE wheat harvest commenced generally with this month throughout all but the 

 northern districts; in some parts however, suddenly and unexpectedly, as in Berks, 

 where perhaps this golden crop has sustained more damage than in any other districts. 

 The latter end of last month was so dry and scorching iu that county, though heavy 

 rains fell elsewhere, that there appeared a sudden and unexpected necessity for the 

 immediate employment of the sickle. A strong, drying, VV.N.W. wind did considerable 

 damage in exposed situations, to the extent, it is agreed on all hands, of full eight 

 bushels per acre, most of those lands having more wheat blown from the ears than 

 would have sufficed for seed. The forward oats, also, were considerably shaken and 

 damaged. Instant recourse was had to the sickle, but the fine days which succeeded, 

 rendered the wheat more ripe and apt to be shaken out ; and notwithstanding all pos- 

 sible care in binding the sheaves, a large succeeding portion of wheat has been shaken 

 out, and numbers of ears broken off. Happily, such loss has occurred in very few 

 places. As far as can be yet determined, wheat on all good lands is heavy enough to 

 stamp the crop an average one throughout. It is nevertheless not sufficiently prolific 

 to signalize the year in which it occurs. As far as we have either seen or heard, there 

 is not that profusion of ponderous, nodding, and highly-filled ears, which usually dis- 

 tinguishes the great wheat year in our reckoing. We have not yet found a wheat 

 ear containing eighty to ninety odd kernels, such as we have both formerly seen and 

 grown. 



The present harvest will produce a q. s. of smutty and discoloured wheat, the pro- 

 duce equally of steeped and unsteeped seed; a consideration which we humbly sub- 

 mit to a writer some years since in the Farmers' Magazine of Scotland, (if happily 

 now living) who pronounced with the utmost gravity, that " It was equally disgraceful 

 to a farmer to grow smutty wheat, as to be personally afflicted with a certain disease." 

 Barley is generally deemed the largest crop, and beyond an average. Oats have been 

 much improved by the late rains, and in certain fortunate districts will approach an 

 average. Pulse will be generally defective in the pod, but the quality good. Hops 

 will be three parts of a full crop. Turnips the same. Mangold wurtzel abundant, 

 and good. That roof of scarcity, so decried and ridiculed in its early day, is now 

 universally and duly appreciated by the farmers, and has certainly proved the best 

 preventive of scarcity of any article of the same kind ever introduced into this coun- 

 try ; due thanks and honour to Sir Mordaunt Martin, the wuzzelly-fuzzelly knight of 

 Long 1 Melford, Suffolk so the honourable baronet, within our recollection, was styled 

 at market dinners. This root, however (of which Sir Mordaunt was the earliest and 

 most sanguine experimenter), it must be acknowledged, as a cattle food, is greatly 

 inferior in quality to carrots, Swedish turnips, and even to our English turnips, on real 

 turnip soils. The chief merits of mangold wurtzel are its great productiveness, its 

 success on inferior soils, even on clays ; and the resistance which its substantial and 

 hardy leaves offer to the amber louse, parent of the fly. It is however dangerous food 

 to cattle in the autumn, and previously to its sweat, or being freed from its superfluous 

 and unwholesome juices. 



Hay is fine in quality, but defective in weight of crop. The rains have been gene- 

 rally insufficient, and it is now too late to think of a crop of after-grass. Large 

 breadths of failing oats were fed off with sheep, and the land sown with rape and 

 turnips for winter food j but great difficulties must yet be expected in feeding live 



