182S.] Report of Chemistry and 

 positive asthma, Dr. Biee informs lis, is 

 for the most part to be treated by mediei- 

 nals that more immediately act upon the 

 primcE via ; and some persons, as is gene- 

 rally known, go farther still in these no- 

 tions, assuming that, <J capite ad culcem, 

 from the crown of the head to the sole of 

 the feet, deranged manifestation is all sto- 

 machic. Bnt that a formidable malady 

 may make good its lodgment in the frame 

 without touching the stomach in its fright- 

 ful march, is sufficiently proved by the 

 characteristics of that to which allusion 

 has been made in the commencement of 

 this paper ; and, even when no specific 

 virus shall have been engaged iu the pro- 

 dnction of disordered states, your ventri- 

 cular doctors shall occasionally work at 

 file first passages with about as much suc- 

 cess as would attend the undertaking to 

 whiten an Ethiopian skin, or deprive a 

 leopard of its spots : whereas remedies, di- 

 rected to those organs which are in reality 

 implicated in the affair, sliall prove direct- 

 ly operative, and ultimately successful. 



Epilepsy, St. Vifus's Dance, and other 

 convulsive diseases, the Reporter has 

 known to be protracted and confirmed by 

 a practical adherence to tliat creed which 

 simplifies all disease into ventricular irre- 

 gularity, and all medicine into stomachic 

 influence. On the oflier hand, much mis- 

 Chief has often been occasioned by blindly 

 following the notion of specific operation, 

 or strengthening agency, without a due re- 

 gard to those circumstances which arise 

 out of the extensive sympathies of the first 



Experimental Philosophy. 17 1 



passages, or rather of the nerves which 

 supply them ; and a dose of magnesia vyill 

 not seldom put a stop to a cough which 

 had proved obstinately irremediable by 

 balsams, anodynes, and expectorants.* 



The Reporter is called upon to express 

 his acknowledgments to a writer in the last 

 Number of this Magazine, and to say, that 

 the intimation so kindly given on the score 

 of technicals shall studiously be attended 

 to. It will however be recollected, by 

 objectors to the language of these essays, 

 tliat their composition involves some dif5- 

 culty. While it will ever be tlieir author's 

 desire to raise his feeble voice against the 

 • mere cabalislica of medicine, he hopes that 

 he should be the last to desire the accom- 

 plishment of any thing inconsistent with 

 the legitimate dignity of professional 

 science. Medicine, as well as mathema- 

 tics, is without a "royal road;" and the 

 proper understanding of disease, even at 

 times in its phraseology, must be the result 

 of regular initiation, not into the mysteries, 

 but the modes, of the art. 



Beiiford-row ; D. UwiNS, M.p. 



Feb. 20, 1823. 



* The virtues of magnesia as a domestic 

 medicinal are not sufficiently known. No 

 person who is obnoxious to stomach irre- 

 gularities, whether natural or induced, 

 should ever be without it. A large tea- 

 spoonful thrown into a glass of water, and 

 drank off before going to bed, would pre- 

 vent, in very many cases, the night rest- 

 lessness consequent upon repletion. 



REPORT OF CHEMISTRY ANP EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. 



DR. M'CuLLocK has lately communi- 

 cated the important fact, that fish 

 may be long preserved in a dry state, and 

 perfectly fresh, by means of small quanti- 

 ties of coarse sugar, carefully rubbed into 

 their insides, after opening, cleansing, and 

 rubbing them dry, and keeping tliem after- 

 wards in a sufficiently dry place to pre- 

 vent mouldiness. In voyaging amongst 

 the north-western islands of Scotland, to 

 investigate their geological structure, the 

 Doctor availed himself of " skippered 

 salmon" thus preserved ; which were 

 found, after several weeks keeping, to be 

 far superior in quality and flavour to any 

 salted or smoaked fish. The great utility 

 of the sugar (or treacle), used by careful 

 housewives in the curing of hams, is very 

 properly insisted on by Dr. M. and an 

 extension of the practice recommended in 

 the curing of ship's provisions. 



Mr. JosKPii Fauhy, being on a jour- 

 ney in .South Wales in May last, was at 

 Mcrthyr presented by Mr. W. Williams, 

 the manager of Cyfarthfa Iron-works, with 

 part of a mass of black cellular iron slag, 

 which had been found, on repairing one 

 of their furnaces, in a situation where it 



must have been long exposed to the strong 

 blast and intense heat of the twyre ; 

 which slag had attracted attention, through 

 its cells coutaining numerous very small 

 brilliant cubes, of a metallic lustre, and 

 deep copper colour. Some of this slag 

 having since been presented to Dr. 

 Woolaston, he has lately read a paper to 

 the Royal Society, on the imbedded crys- 

 tals, which he finds to consist of pure me- 

 tallic titanium ; so hard, that the corners 

 of them readily scratch agate and rock- 

 crystals. These metallic crystals he found 

 absolutely infusible before the blow-pipe, 

 and thence the Doctor concludes, th^t 

 the metal in them had not been fused, but 

 the crystals had been slowly formed, by 

 successive increments, from the reduction 

 of small quantities of the oxide of this me- 

 tal in the ironstone, the limestone, or the 

 coke, wherewith the furnace had been 

 supplied. Neither borax alone, nor mixed 

 with carbonate of soda, had any fluxing 

 effect on these crystals ; nor had nitric, 

 muriatic, nitro-muriatic, or sulphuric, acid, 

 the least action on them. The faces of 

 the <:ubes, on examination under the mi- 

 croscope, appear not to (jo flat, but in- 

 iHnteiJi 



