400 



Although Dr. Osborne did not enter ii])on the medical 

 treatment of the case, yet he considered that the eiFect of 

 the plan adopted to recover his speech afforded an additional 

 proof that this patient had not lost the faculty of language, 

 but only the art or knack of speaking. He commenced 

 learning to speak de novo like a child, by repeating after 

 another person first the letters of the alphabet, and subse- 

 quently words. This was a very laborious task. Sometimes 

 he was able to pronounce words which at other times he 

 found impracticable, but his progress may be estimated by 

 his repeating after another the same By-law of the College 

 of Physicians in the following terms: " i< may be in the 

 power of the College to enhavine or not ariatin any Licentiate 

 seviously to his amission to a spolowship as they shall think 

 Jit." A month or two afterwards he repeated the same By- 

 law perfectly well, with the exception of the word power, 

 which on this occasion he called prier. This gentleman 

 soon afterwards went to the country, where in a few months 

 he was carried off by a fever, and Dr. Osborne learned no 

 further particulars respecting him after he left Dublin. 



Sir William Hamilton remarked that Dr. Robinson's mean 

 refractions, published in the second Part of the Nineteenth 

 Volume of the Transactions of the Academy, might be re- 

 presented nearly by the formula, 



R = 57,546 tan (0- 4" xr); (1) 



or by this other formula, 



R cot + 11^ sin 3",8 = 57,346 ; (2) 



R being the number of seconds in the refraction correspond- 

 ing to the apparent zenith distance Q, when the thermometer 

 is 50°, and the barometer 29,60 inches. 



The first formula seems to give a maximum positive de- 

 viation from Dr. Robinson's Table, of about a quarter of a 

 second, at about 80° of zenith distance ; it agrees with the 



