OUTLINES OF PERIODICAL LITERATURE. 343 



case whfre loss of the perception of colours intervened upon a defect of vision 

 in one eye, and was concomitant with deficiency in the organ of colouring 

 particularly on the same side. These papers are well calculated to gain the 

 attention of students, inquisitive for entertaining or scientific knowledge. 

 Through seven " notices of books" and a chapter of remarks on eight periodi- 

 cals, we are brought to a "note" on M. Dubois' new philosophical deduc- 

 tions applied to the study of idiotism and insanity ; and this note concludes 

 with the sentiment — that M. Dubois' classification of idiots is too vague, and 

 his employment of the terms instinctive, intellectual, and reasoning, appears to 

 be altogether arbitrary, for the purpose of giving the semblance of exact 

 classification without the reality. The " short communications" are — on an 

 empirical anticipation of phrenology, classical studies, lesions of the brain, 

 dreaming, the heads of Jeremy Bentham and Confucius, and on the innate 

 dispositions to attack and to resist. From the " intelligence" we learn — that 

 in all corners of the land, there are societies, institutions, and lecturers ac- 

 tually engaged in cultivating the new mental science, and in encouraging its 

 beneficent applications. We are persuaded that the peaceful and highly 

 moral Miscellany here delineated, would furnish the general reader with 

 a larger share of rational amusement and of instruction adapted to promote 

 the spread of human happiness, than most of those periodicals which evince 

 an inclination to seize the advantages of popularity through the mere noise 

 of extravagant pretensions. 



The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, exhibiting a concise view of the 

 latest and most important discoveries in Medicine, Surgery, and Phar- 

 macy : 8vo, Edinburgh and London, 1838. 



No. CXXXV., for April, 1838, or the fifty-eighth number of a new series, 

 embraces some articles on subjects in chemistry and phytology. The first is 

 an account of the liquidization and solidification of carbonic acid gas, an inte- 

 resting experiment successfully performed by Dr. Hope, in the chemical 

 class-room of the University of Edinburgh, and witnessed by many distin- 

 guished scholars, philosophers, and naturalists. 2. This is a sketch of obser- 

 vations on the grains of Teel, or Till, or Ramtill, the Nook in Abyssinia, the 

 Verinnua or Kertrello in Hindostan, and the edible oil obtained from it, ac- 

 companied with a list of the botanical names by which the plant has been de- 

 signated in the systems of different phyptographers : it is the Ramtilla oleifera 

 of Decandolle ; and two varieties, the wild and cultivated, are known. 3. 

 Dr. Peck's remarks on the Aralia hispida, the bristly berry-bearing angelica, 

 show that it might be efficaciously administered in medicine : to the advan- 

 tages of an energetic diuretic operation, it unites that of being agreeable in 

 taste, and more easily endured by the stomach than all the other remedies of 

 the same kind. 4. When discoursing on theCeanothus americanus, the New 

 Jersey tea, Dr. Hubbard relates as a fact in history, that the leaves of this 

 plant were employed as a substitute for tea during the period of the Ameri- 

 can revolution : these leaves are slightly bitter and astringent. 5. Dr. An- 

 tony exhibited the leaves of the Amygdalus persica, the peach tree, as a 

 sedative in fevers of a remittent type, in some cases of cholera without vo- 



