1823.] “Medical 
Traits of the Aborigines of America. 
A poem. 12mo. 
Outlines of Botany, containing an Ex- 
planation of Botanical Terms, and an 
Illustration of the System of Linnzas ; for 
the use of schools and students ; by Dr. 
JoHNn LocKE. 12mo. E 
Outlines of the Mineralogy and Geology 
of Boston, and its Vicinity, with a geolo- 
Report. 75 
gical map; by J. Freeman DANA, m.D. 
and Samuel L, DANA, M.D. 
Some Account of the Life of Thomas 
Dormer, with Hints on Early Rising. 
The Life of James Otis, of Massachn- 
setts : containing, also, Notices of some 
contemporary Cliaracters and Events, from 
the Year 1760 to 1775; by WiLtiam 
Tupor, 
MEDICAL REPORT. 
. —=__ 
Report of Diseases and Casuatti£Es occurring inthe public and private Practice 
of the Physician who has the care of the Western District of the City Dispensary. 
—_—— 
NDER a thermometrical variation of 
less than five degrees through the 
whole course of the last thirty days, un- 
der cloudy skies, and with an ungenial sea- 
son, formidable disease has been remark- 
ably unfrequent. A sort of healthy reac- 
tion has established itself upon the fright- 
ful sickliness of April and May, and du- 
ring the last six weeks less advice has been 
given and less medicine required than, per- 
haps, for years previously. 
Some few cases of cholera have appeared 
before their wonted time, and these have 
proved inexplicably severe, This moment 
the writer has heard of a fatal case in Ken- 
sington, in the instance of the wife of a 
barrister, a beautiful and interesting fe- 
male, who fell a victim to the force of the 
malady only a few hours subsequently to 
danger haying been conceived, 
It is at the coming season of the year, 
especially, that slight menaces of bilious 
derangement ought not to be disregarded, 
lest they rapidly mount up to frightful ma- 
lignity and fatal termination. Fruits have 
perhaps got the diseredit of producing 
what is oftener referrible to atmospheric 
changes ; cherries and plums ought, how- 
ever, to be carefully avoided where they 
atall disagree. From the former the re- 
porter has seen much stomach mischief 
produced, and he has been frightened 
sometimes at the quantity of this fruit that 
some persons will swallow under the no- 
tion of ifs comparative innocence. 
One of the most formidable cases of 
spasmodic asthma that the writer has ever 
witnessed, has just been submitted to his 
care. How dreadful are the paroxysms of 
this disease! sine vita vivere—sine morti 
mori, would be the most appropriate motto 
tliat could be selected for a treatise on 
asthma, for the patient under its influence 
literally lives without life and dies without 
death. The stramonium here, as in other 
cases, the reporter has found the most ef: 
ficacious in subduing the fits, but this isa 
medicine that requires much care and cau- 
tion in its use. It is apt, if given in over- 
doses, to seize hold of the nervous system, 
and, in supplanting one, produce another 
disease, ; 
The physician as well as the moralist is 
furnished with many opportunities for ap- 
preciating the force of habit. A young 
girl has just applied for relief from an epi- 
leptic seizure, who, after having been cured 
by the reporter, according to her state- 
ment, two years since, was seized at the 
same time, and under the same cireum- 
stances, that the attack had previously oc- 
cwred ; viz. in a crowded place of wor- 
ship, and while suffering under the feeling 
of heat. Both in the prevention and 
treatment of maladies, the power of habit 
ought to be constantly recognized. Hoop- 
ing cough was an epidemic among us some 
months since, and we shall find many of 
those children who have not had-an oppor- 
tunity of change in residence, still, to a 
certain extent, the subject of the affection, 
while those who have lett their homes have 
also left their complaints. ‘The writer’s 
own children coughed and coughed on, in 
spite of medicine, but medicine was no 
longer wanted when. country air was had 
recourse to ; and in this case it is rather 
the specific effect of change than of air that 
operates the good. One of the children 
took cold in the country, after the com- 
plete cessation of the cough ; and the con- 
sequence was, its return with almost pris- 
tine violence ; the new and healthy habit 
not having acquired sufficient strength to 
resist. the constitutional tendency to the 
recurrence of the old ones, 
Bedford-row ; D. Uwins, m.v. 
July 20, 1823. 
MONTHLY 
