4b4 
of the organ or tissue of the body more es- 
pecially implicated, nothing satisfactory has 
been yet advanced. The brain, however, 
is the part which falls most under suspicion ; 
and, accordingly, some eminent men have 
taken their stand here.* The practice of 
those who hold such. opinions will be easily 
predicated... Blood-letting is the summum 
remedium—vascular depletion as long as the 
symptoms continue—and therefore in any 
stage of the disorder. To all this it may 
be said, first, that any theory of fever which 
assigns inflammation as the proximate 
cause, requires for its confirmation unques- 
tionable evidences of the presence of that 
morbid agent in the organs said to be af- 
fected, Secondly, blood-letting cures the 
phlegmasie ; that is, those inflammations 
about which all pathologists are agreed ; 
quashes them in numberless instances, uno 
ictu: but fevers have subsided under all 
plans of treatment, and under no treat- 
mentatall : thisis not opinion, but matter- 
of-fact. Will inflammations of important 
organs so yield? ‘There are yet practi- 
tioners who advocate the use of wine and 
bark in fevers. To sum up, it is confidently 
asserted, that the ratio of the deaths from 
fever has been pretty nearly the same under 
all the modes of treatment that have yet 
been devised. 
Scarlatina has prevailed rather extensive- 
ly : in the Reporter’s practice the disease 
has in some instances appeared in a mild 
form, yielding readily to the ordinary anti- 
inflammatory measures. In one instance 
the disease was confined to one child, al- 
* Clutterbuck, Langstaff, &c, 
Monthly Agricultural Report. » 
{Dee. 1, 
though several children in the same family 
were in constant communication with it. 
In other instances, however, the disorder 
has exhibited symptoms so severe, as to re- 
quire all the resources which our art could 
supply to obviate a fatal termination ; and 
all the measures practised to prevent the 
disease from spreading to other individuals 
in the family have been rendered’ abortive. 
Measles haye, during the past month, fallen 
under the treatment of the Reporter; but 
of this disorder, so deeply interesting to the 
fond parent, he has nothing extraordinary 
to communicate. I 
A small work from the pen of Dr. Shear- 
man, on Hydrocephalus, has just made its 
appearance: it deserves the most attentive 
perusal of the medical practitioner. The 
purpose of the author is to controvert the 
doctrine of water in the brain being a dis- 
tinct specific disease, and to oppose the 
prevalent opinion of the proximate catse of 
watery effusion being inflammation. The 
author endeavours to show that the symp- 
tom, water in the brain, is an accidental oe- 
currence, taking place in a variety of diseases, 
and as the consequence of numerous causes, 
acting upon the cerebral organs, depending 
upon a certain condition of those organs, 
constituting a state of predisposition merely, 
without the presence of actual. disease. 
Dr. Shearman considers fever, of whatever 
description, as one of the most frequent 
causes of effusion in the brain. In the 
opinion of the Reporter, the author has 
proved the soundness of his positions. 
, James Fievp. 
Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Nov. 24, 1825. 
MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
——<— 
ITH respect to the present state 
of our agricultural affairs and our 
prospects, we may well exclaim with the 
ancient, “‘O too fortunate people, did they 
but know their own good!” For some 
time past, our reports have been those of 
almost invariable and increasing prosperity, 
in which all the rural classes have shared. 
Wheat sowing is completed, with the ex- 
ception of some few districts, in which that 
process is usually extended to the first or 
second week in December. The season 
has throughout been most auspicious, and 
the failures extremely rare ; the lands having 
worked well, and the seed been good. <A 
greater breadth than last year has been 
sown, and no necessity will be experienced 
for the culture of wheat in the spring. As 
a natural consequence of such a season and__ 
circumstances, the early sown wheats have 
risen.to too, great luxuriance, and the an- 
cient, customis. generally resorted to of 
sheeping them, or feeding them down: in 
some districts, turnips are strewed upon the 
wheats, as sheep food. Breaking up waste 
lands proceeds gradually, and the national 
produce of bread-corn may, at no great 
distant of time, overtop the home demand. 
Should the present open weather continue, 
the fallows for spring tillage will be finished 
in fine order, from the stirring spirit which 
now inspires. the farmers, and from the 
competent number of good and skilful, and, 
comparatively, well paid labourers. These 
last earn, in the best paid districts, from 
fifteen to twenty-five shillings per week. 
The last crop of wheat may now be very 
fairly pronounced one-quarter beyond the 
average of years, in quantity; in quality, 
that portion which escaped damage from 
the variableness of the seasons, is remark- 
ably heavy, thin-skinned and fine, amount- 
ing, in probability, to one-quarter of ‘the: 
whole; the remainder. is of middling and 
irregular quality, a part of it steely, and 
much of it rough in hand. The straw; ex- 
hibiting here and there the common atmo- 
spheric blemishes, is generally clean and 
: fair, 
