We hardly know whether it will be 
deemed a merit or not in this work; but it 
is absolutely devoid of all chemical details, 
or of what may be called literary merit : 
perhaps the occasion called for neither ; 
and if a plain statement of facts, ona subject 
not generally understood, have any value, 
this book must be valuable; and as such, 
we strongly recommend it to our readers. 
Mémoire et Rapports sur les Fumigations 
sulphureuses, par J. C. Galés, Docteur 
en Médecine de la faculté de Paris. Im- 
primés par ordre du gouvernement. A 
Paris. 1816. 8yvo. pp. 137, _ 
The Utility of Fumigatmg Baths, for the 
Cure of Gout, Rheumatism, Paralytic 
Affections, Bilious and Nervous Disorders, 
&c. By Jonathan Green, Member of the 
Royal College of Surgeons, 8vo. pp. 115. 
London. 1823. 
The general inutility of medicine, except 
to the vendor, is beginning to be pretty well 
understood, and though death goes on 
much at his usual rate, the sick are allowed 
at least the privilege of dying on easier 
terms than heretofore. In fact, they are 
now permitted to go off by the course of 
nature, instead of being poisoned, and that 
is something, for after all it is better to die 
of a fever than a fever-draught. We hear 
no longer of Mithridates and Theriacs, 
those ingenious combinations of fifty in- 
gredients, all of the most opposite pro- 
perties, put together upon the pleasant 
principle that, if one does not cure, another 
will, for upon no other ground can we 
account for those monstrous aggregates of 
the materia medica. But even now the art 
is-infinitely too much perplexed in its no- 
sology, and its pharmacopeia is loaded with 
superfluities, simple as well as compound ; 
strip the thing of its technical mysteries 
and the causes of disease will be found few 
in number, though its forms may be many, 
while as to medicine we shall soon see that 
it is effective only as it aceelerates, or re- 
tards, the action of some particular organ. 
The value of a medicine, therefore, is in 
proportien to its capability of bringing about 
one or the other of these effects, and the 
next question is as to the mode of its ap- 
plication, whether it shall be applied to the 
mucous, or cutaneous, surface, that is to the. 
internal or external. ‘The strictest analogy 
exists between these two organs; whether 
we consider their structure, their proper- 
ties, their sympathies, or even their general 
functions, and we sometimes find that the 
one will take the character of the other: 
but notwithstanding this analogy, it makes 
a material difference to which we apply a 
medicine, for-in the one-case it is consider- 
ably altered by the juices of the stomach, 
and in the other is taken up at once into the 
constitution. Accordingly, we find that ef= 
forts have been made from the earliest pe- 
Literary and Critical Proémium. 
[Ocr. 1, 
riods to administer by friction the most 
active medicines, such as sulphur, opium 
and mereury ; but even this remedy had its 
evils: the grease employed in it choked up 
the delicate pores, and thus either materially 
retarded the effect of the medicine, or it- 
self created a disease ; for it is scarcely pos- 
sible that the capillary tubes of the skin 
can be closed without some consequent de- 
rangement of the internal functions. Any 
plan, therefore, which will convey the vir- 
tues of medicine through the pores becomes 
a desideratum, and a plan of this kind has 
been brought forward, or, to speak more 
correctly, reyived by Dr. Gales, of Paris, 
for the beneficial effects of sulphur, applied 
to the body in a state of vapour, have been 
known for ages. Moreover, a natural 
gaseous-bath has long existed’on the lake of 
Agnano, near Naples, where an exhausted 
voleano spontaneously pours forth the va- 
pour through many rifts in the earth, which 
is then collected in apartments for the use 
of patients, 
But though the remedy was thus ge- 
nerally known, it was never effectually nor 
extensively used, till introduced into France 
by Dr. Galés, who received, in consequence, 
from the government a pension of 6,000 
francs per annum. His object at first was 
only the cure of cutaneous’ diseases, and in 
this it was found almost uniformly success- 
ful, whatever might be their nature. The 
most inveterate cases of leprosy, of psora, 
and that horrible class of eruptions known 
under the name of Dartres, gave way to 
this powerful remedy, which seemed to 
possess a certainty, belonging to no other 
medicine. A little time too shewed that 
its influence was by no means confined to 
diseases of the skin; amongst the various 
patients who applied for the relief of psora, 
many, as might be expected, laboured un- 
der other disorders, such as sciatica, palsy, 
rheumatism, or glandular obstructions ; and 
these too were unexpectedly found to yield 
to the fumigation, which had been adminis- 
tered without the least reference to such 
affections. Success, so complete in itself, 
and so extended in its objects, would hardly 
be credible, if it were not confirmed by the 
first physicians and authorities in Paris; not 
that there is any thing opposite to sound 
reason in the application or its effect, but 
that we have no other example of any me- 
dicine being so universally efficacious. The 
assertion of any one person, however re- 
putable, is hardly to be credited against our 
general experience of facts, but.the concur- 
ring testimony of so many individuals to the 
same point, and who could have no motive 
for deception, ‘forms an: evidence that can- 
not be disbelieved without overstepping the 
bounds of a rational incredulity. ~~ 
It does not appear that Dr. Galés, in the 
first instance, adopted this powerful agent 
upon any just or general principle. In 
examining the pustular matter of the psora, 
he 
