154 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



assumption. All this quackery and folly would receive a death- 

 blow if, as in Prussia, certificates of qualification Jtom some official 

 public board were made the indispensable requisites of admission to 

 the important office of instructor of youth. There is no doubt but 

 ■"to this conclusion we must come at last." In Prussia, none but 

 men of education, purposely brought up, duly instructed, and strictly 

 examined in every })oint of necessary fitness, are permitted to act as 

 schoolmasters, and the salutary regulation is most favourable in its 

 consequences. 



We had hoped to have been enabled to make some observations 

 on the establishment of Normal Schools — a most important topic, 

 and an article of deep interest — but we are precluded from length- 

 ening this notice for want of space. Should Mrs. Austin perfect 

 the translation of this work of Victor Cousin (for, be it observed, 

 this volume is only a part of the great original), we will examine it 

 with all the care the important topic so well merits, and submit the 

 result hereafter to the judgment of our readers. 



Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye and its appendages, by Richard 

 JMiddlemore, M.R.C.S., Surgeon to the Birmingham Eye Infir- 

 mary, &c. 8vo. London : Longman and Co. ; and James Drake, 

 Birmingham. 1836. 



At a first sight of this work, we confess that we were somewhat 

 startled, for two such bulky volumes, each containing upwards of 

 800 pages, have rarely been presented to our critical investigation. 



After many plunges, however, into the beginning, middle, and 

 end, we became perfectly satisfied that this treatise is a work of con- 

 siderable ability, and of great practical usefulness. We have, 

 therefore, perused it with much attention, and the result of our 

 examination is, that it reflects infinite credit on the medical skill 

 and literary powers of the intelligent author, and should, doubtless, 

 be in the hands of every student who is anxious to arrive at emi- 

 nence in that very essential knowledge of his profession to which 

 this publication more particularly refers. 



In the surgical profession, although long and deep study be re- 

 quired, practice is the high road which leads to eminence. We 

 place more value, therefore, on the lucubrations of an author who, 

 like Mr. Middlemore, has been placed at the head of an institution 

 for many years (the Birmingham Eye Infirmary) in which nearly 

 two thousand cases come annually under his observation, than we 

 should do on the strictures of an unemployed member of that depart- 

 ment of surgery, however highly gifted he may be with genius 

 and talent. The lessons of practice are necessary to the ripening of 

 all qualifications, but more particularly are they essential to the im- 

 portant branches of medical science. The author of this treatise 

 has advantages, therefore, which all writers on the subject cannot 

 claim ; and we must say that he has made these advantages very 

 apparent. It is to be lamented that a thorough knowledge of the 



