1S26.] Monthly Medical Report. 643 



should precede tne use of calomel m all cases where great restlessness and disposition to 

 nausea usher in the attack. 



Among the disorders prevalent during the early part of the month, the reporter 

 alluded to cases of nervous debility, and he takes this opportunity of remarking what 

 an infinite number of cases daily fall under the observation and care of physicians, to 

 which no single or well-defined term ever has been, or ever can be applied. With all 

 their industry, (and of all classes of writers on medical topics, none have ever shewn 

 more) Nosologists have still left unnamed very many of the most commonly observed 

 disorders. So fading are their forms, so fleeting are their features, that no language 

 could afford a term capable of expressing their characteristic signs. A few of these 

 anomalous affections have been expressly treated of by medical authors, such as the 

 climacteric disease, which has occuiiied the pen of Sir Henry Halford, and the painful 

 affection of the side, occurring almost exclusively to unmarried females, which has 

 received much light from the acute observation of Dr. Bree. Several of the cases 

 which have fallen under the rejjorter's notice during the last month have been of this 

 undefinable kind, of which the following may be taken as instances. A case in which 

 the symptoms resembled those of Anginia Pectoris, preceded by great languor, and 

 ultimately removed by the breaking out of two or three large carbunculous abscesses. 

 A case of indolent jagged ulcei-ation of the sides and inferior surface of the tongue, 

 attended with general weakness, and hitherto not benefited by any kind of treatment 

 constitutional or local. A case of that gradual failure of all the functions of the body, 

 vital, natural, and animal, in an elderly man, to which the term decay of nature, is 

 applied by the vulgar, with a degree of pathological correctness, which might afford a 

 lesson of instruction to many professional men. Several cases of extreme debility 

 consequent upon long continued suckling, the prominerit symptoms of which are 

 faintness, languor, loss of appetite, mistiness, and depression of mind. 



The usual mode of reasoning concerning these and similar anomalous cases, is either 

 to refer them to the general head of disordered stomach and bowels, or to suppose the 

 existence of some latent organic mischief, the irritation of which occasions the symptoms. 

 With both of these explanations the reporter has reason to be dissatisfied, and he is 

 convinced, that any attempt to fix the seats of such disorders either upon the stomach, 

 the liver, the spleen, or any particular plexus of nerves, is as incorrect in theory, as it 

 is useless, or mischievous in practice. There was a considerably greater show of reason 

 in the ancient hyjjothesis of a depraved condition of the blood and humours, because 

 such a principle involved the notion of some widely operating cause ; but the reflecting 

 pathologist of modern times will be content with referring them all to a defect of con- 

 stitutional power; and he will direct his remedies, not to tlie excitement or relief of any 

 particular viscus, but to the gradual strengthening of the powers of life. He will place 

 his chief reliance on such modes of treatment as are of general and extended eflScacy 

 over the bodily functions, viz. : daily exercise in the open air, change of air, good ventila- 

 tion, regular habits, the warm or cold bath, an allowance of wine, and bv way of internal 

 medicine, bark, steel, aromatics, and the volatile alkali. The unprejudiced observer 

 must see and confess, that the pres-ailing error of modern pathology is the limitation of 

 diseased action to particular structures ; an error arising doubtless from an overweening 

 fondness for morbid dissections. Duly restricted, such a principle is undoubtedly 

 admissible, as the reporter will hereafter find an opportunity of shewing ; but in the 

 mean time he enters his protest against the almost unlimited extent to which, in this 

 country, and still more in France and Italy, it has of late been the fashion to carry it. 



Geoege Gregory, m.d. 



8, Upper John-street, Golden-square, May 22, 1826. 



MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



Conning over gravely our last very sanguine report, we were on the point of atoning 

 for our too high-wrought prospects, in a lecture on the instability of all human affairs, 

 when the heavens opened, and a most copious soaking, and we trust universal shower, 

 descended into the bosom of the thirsty earth, and at once revivified the parched and 

 drooping vegetation, and relieved us of the chief of our solicitude. The warm April 

 showers which we invoked had failed to come ; instead of which, a long succession of 

 chilling easterly and north winds have most unseasonably checked and retarded vegeta- 

 tion of every species, certainly not without some degree of lasting injur)', as well to the 

 corn and grasses as to the fruits. These atmospheric changes, however, and their con- 

 sequences, as they cannot surprize, ought not to dismay : and should warm and genial 

 winds and weather succeed, we may yet reap and gather in overflowing abundance. During 

 the prevalence of the westerly winds in early Spring, we spoke of an atmospheric 

 balance, according to our experience, to be apprehended at an unseasonable period ; it 



