On saving the Lives of Mariners. 455 
-elerated by the powerful narcotic properties of the tobacco 
employed in this instance in a most unusual and unwar- 
rantable manner? j 
This is another of the many cases which prove the ne- 
cessity of having recourse to an early operation, the ex- 
’ treme fallacy and even danger in trusting to medicine, and 
the inhumanity in representing the operation im such terms 
as to prejudice an unfortunate sufferer against its early per- 
formance. 
The many invaluable charitable institutions in this me- 
tropolis, established for the express purpose ‘of affording 
relief to the afflicted poor; the easy and daily access to 
these charities, particularly dispensaries, and societies for 
the relief of the ruptured poor, render it, in my opinion, 
highly criminal in any practitioner who does not choose to 
perform the necessary operations himself, to retain the pa- 
_ tients under.his care for the sake of paltry gain, which is 
often acquired at the expense of the life of a parent of a 
large family, who, if industrious and prudent, though poor, 
is one of the most valuable members of the community. 
JOHN TAUNTON, 
Greville-street, Hatton-garden, 19th June, 1811. 
LXXVI.—On saving the Lives of Mariners. 
I, is surprising that a subject of so much importance | 
should have received comparatively bpt little*consideration 
till within these few years ; but it is consolatory to observe 
that, the attention of the public having been at length called 
to it, benevolent and intelligent men have occupied their 
ininds, and applied their inventive powers, to the contrivipg 
of remedies for the “dangers attending shipwreck, with-a 
' degree of energy and success that could hardly have been 
hoped for. 
In the year 1792, the Society for the Encouragement of 
Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, gave a bounty of 
fifty guineas to Mr. John Bell, then a serjeant, afterwards 
a lieutenant in the royal artillery, ‘for his invention of 
throwing a rope on shore by means of a mortar from a ves- 
sel in danger of shipwreck * ; and im the year 1807, the 
same Society published some further particulars, with a plate 
of the apparatus +. Having already laid before our readers 
an account of this invention}, it is only necessary to observe 
* See the Socicty’s Transactions, vol. x, + Ibid, vol. xxv. 
¢ Phil. Mag. vol, xxxii. p. 294. 
F£4 respecting 
