224 Analyses of Books. [Marci<, 



Scepticism — False theory — Devotion to authority and esta- 

 bhshed routine — The assigning to art that which was the effect 

 of unassisted nature — The assigning to pecuhar substances 

 properties deduced from experiments made on inferior animals 

 — Ambiguity of nomenclature — The progress of botanical 

 science — The application and misapplication of chemical philo- 

 sophy — The influence of climate and seasons on diseases, as 

 well as on the propcities and operations of their remedies — The 

 ignorant preparation or fraudulent adulteration of medicines — 

 The unseasonable collection of those remedies which are of 

 vegetable origin ; and the obscurity which has attended the 

 operation of compound medicines." Now to this truly formidable 

 list of mischief-producing causes, I think the author might have 

 added, the careless revision of national Pharmacopoeias ; unless 

 this may be classed under the head of the ignorant preparation 

 of medicine. 



Under the head of " Ambiguity of nomenclature," Dr. Paris 

 has collected some curious facts, and from such various sources, 

 as to evince that his reading has been extensive, and that he has 

 neglected no means of attaining knowledge in illustration of his 

 subject. 



After mentioning some circumstances respecting the sweet 

 and common potatoe, he observes, " A similar instance is pre- 

 sented to us HI the culinary vegetable, well known under the 

 name of Jerusalem artichoke, which derived its appellation in 

 consequence of its flavour having been considered like that of 

 the common artichoke ; it is hardly necessary to observe that it 

 has no botanic relation whatever to such a plant, it being an 

 heliotrope (hehotropium tuberosum); the epithet Jerusalem is a 

 curious corruption of the Itahan term gira-sole ; that is, turn-sun 

 in English, or heliotrope in Greek." 



Dr. Paris occasionally enlivens the subjects on which he ig 

 treating (and it must be confessed that they sometimes stand in 

 need of it) with anecdotes which happily illustrate his positions: 

 he remarks, that " it ought not to be forgotten that cultivation 

 and artificial habits may have blunted the susceptibility of our 

 organs, and in some instances changed and depraved their 

 functions : certain qualities, for instance, are so strongly con- 

 nected with each other by the chain of association that by pre- 

 senting only one to the mind, the other hnks follow in succession. 

 This might be illustrated," continues Dr. Paris, " by the 

 recital of numerous fallacies to which our most simple perceptions 

 are exposed from the powers of association ; but I will relate an 

 anecdote which, to my mind, elucidates the nature and extent of 

 such fallacies more strikingly than any example which could be 

 adduced. Shortly after Sir Humphry Davy had succeeded in 

 decomposing the fixed alkalies, a portion of potassium was 

 placed in the hand of one of our most distinguished chemists, 

 with a query as to its nature ? The philosopher, observing it* 



