CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 155 



diseases of the eye comprehends so small a part of the objects in- 

 cluded in a medical students education, and that so little time is 

 allotted to the special cultivation of this subject, at least, so far as to 

 attend a courj^ of lectures devoted exclusively to its consideration ; 

 but it is still more to be lamented that this defectiveness sometimes 

 leads to consequences disastrous to the patient. 



To the medical student, and particularly to the practitioner who 

 is desirous of obtaining a more comprehensive knowledge of opthal- 

 mic disease than is usually acquired, 3Ir. Middleraore's treatise will 

 be most invaluaWe. 



Artisans and Machinery : the moral and physical condition of the 

 manufacturing Population considered with reference to mechanical 

 substitutes for human Labour, By P. Gaskell, Esq., M. R. C. S. 

 London: J. W. Parker, 1836. 



The rapid increase of non-consuming physical power, as applied 

 to British manufactures, is the source of rational surprise and allow- 

 able exultation to all who reflect upon the subject; and highly 

 interesting works have been written to display the practical applica- 

 tion of mechanical science, and our possible resources. These publi- 

 cations may be considered as forming a kind of series, each one in 

 succession taking a more distinct view of the subject, 



Mr. Babbage, in 1827, published his Economy of Machinery, 

 which was followed, in 1831, by a volume of the Useful Know- 

 ledge Society, entitled Results (f Machinery, and Mr. Gaskell has 

 now entered the field with his Artisans and Machinery ; in which 

 the author, fully participating in the admiration of the power of the 

 human intellect, as exhibited in our mechanical and chemical im- 

 provements and discoveries, analyzes their present effects with a 

 fearless hand, and gives it as his conviction that, to the great bulk of 

 the people of this country, the results of our scientific power have 

 been any thing but desirable. Mr. Gaskell attributes the present 

 declension in the social and physical condition of the artisans, to the 

 separation of families, the breaking up of households, the irruptions 

 of all those ties which link man's heart to the better portion of his 

 nature, — viz., his instincts and social affections ;* and the existing 

 system of congregating in towns and densely populated neighbour- 

 hoods. The period of domestic manufactures, which Mr. Gaskell 

 styles '^ the golden times," when the distaff and the spinning-wheel 

 were in use, and the majority of artisans laboured in their own 

 houses, and in the bosom of their families, has long ceased to exist ; 

 because the various new channels into which our cotton manufactures 

 have been of late years introduced, rendered the production of 

 machinery indispensable to meet the demand in the foreign markets. 

 Looking, therefore, at the rapid and extraordinary increase of this 

 important branch of our manufacturing industry, in a national point 



•p.a 



