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ciate, and very certain to excite discussion, when made the basis of 

 a medical history, as Dr. Lewis must have already discovered. But 

 there is great merit in this laborious attempt to give a medical his- 

 tory of an important region, and, however, much it may be criticised, 

 it could be desired that the example were oftener copied. The Sep- 

 tember number contains a useful practical paper, by Dr. Fenner, on 

 Retention of the Placenta; and an extraordinary article entitled 

 "Criticisms and Controversies relating to the Nervous and Muscular 

 Systems," by Dr. Bennet Dowler. Obviously an acute thinker, and 

 original observer, this gentleman allows himself to mingle so many 

 acid, astringent, effervescent and over-heating elements in the large 

 libations he pours on the altar of science, that all but the very 

 thirsty are likely to sip rather than drink of the strange composition. 

 The same article is continued in the November number, followed by 

 a long criticism, by Dr. Boling, upon Dr. Lewis's Medical History 

 of Alabama. In the January number Dr. Dowler employs his active 

 intellect upon the tranquillizing subject of meteorology, which he 

 has studied with his usual zeal and observation. Dr. H. T. Holmes' 

 Practical Illustrations of Uterine Diseases, illustrate the propriety 

 of employing the speculum, but the diagnosis will scarcely satisfy the 

 exacting reader, and the result, in one or more of his cases, could 

 hardly be considered final. Dr. Nott, a bold writer and good patho- 

 logist, has a well written and ingenious paper on Yellow Fever, in 

 which he advocates the animalcular theory of its origin. Dr. Lewis 

 replies at length to Dr. Boling's Criticism. Such discussions may 

 be unavoidable, but they are to a medical journal what a chancery 

 suit is to an estate. Several papers on epidemic cerebro-spinal 

 meningitis are full of interest, as giving accounts of a disease which 

 has appeared epidemically or endemically in various parts of the 

 world before reaching this country. 



The Buffalo Medical Journal and Monthly Review has reached 

 the close of its third volume. It is divided into three departments, 

 the first containing original cases and reviews, the latter often quite 

 elaborate; the second made up of selections; and the third editorial 

 and miscellaneous. The editor and one contributor, Dr. F. H. 

 Hamilton, an able surgeon and ready writer, have done a large pro- 

 portion of the labour of sustaining this journal. The first has fur- 

 nished a number of original papers on various subjects; the Diagnosis 

 of Urinary Changes and Remarks on Blood-letting, in the number 

 for January, 1847; on Follicular Enteritis (Dec. 1847); with Re- 



