202 Remarks on Madeira, Climate of the Tropics, 



For my own part, I really wonder how a man of his vast medical 

 lore, and extensive erudition, could possibly hazard such an il- 

 logical assertion, when, in nine instances out of ten, those causes 

 are manifestly consequences depending on, or connected with, 

 those remote ones. Dr. .Tames Johnson, again, an eminent surgeon 

 in the navy, and a gentleman entitled to great praise and respect 

 on account of his industrv, abilities, and services, attacks Dr. 

 Mosely omnibus vervis svis for his Canidian doctrine of lunar 

 influence. Harl Dr. Moseh', however, been only attacked here, 

 he certainly would have proved invulnerable. — Shades of Boer- 

 haave, of Mead, of Arbuthnot, and of the Gregorys! your doc- 

 trines are decried, and about to be exploded, not by such men 

 as these alone, but by others, who cannot trace the synthetic 

 links of the great chain of atmospheric influence, through causes 

 and effects, and who seem to grope and ti'cad in thorny confu- 

 sion, and finally, with vexatious disa})pointment, to look U|) and 

 exclaim against the goodly tree. What, in the name of science, 

 are the seasons of the year, and the morning and the evening, 

 and the uoon and night, of the diurnal period, but modifica- 

 tions of the sun's influence on the atmosphere and earth, ac- 

 cording to the particular positions of the latter in the ecliptic, 

 and (notwithstanding any abrupt assertions to the contrary) 

 more or less varied by the influence of the moon, according to 

 her relative positions in conjunction and opposition, and in pc- 

 rigcen and apogceo, in her intricate motion through her zigzag* 

 orbit? For the truth of the varied difference of animal sensation, 

 from the particular state of the weather induced by the influence 

 of the heavenly bodies, I could, in point of evidence, appeal even 

 to the feelings of the wandering Tartar or apathetic Indian ; 

 but, authorized as I am, in so clear a case, to judge and decide, 

 I will simply state that there is no patient, valetudinarian, or 

 person ot sensibility, who has not, in a high degree, experienced 

 gladdening and depressing sensations from the vicissitudes of the 

 seasons and the changes of the weather; and that these are only 

 modified states of tlie atmosphere, by which, from the conjunct 

 influence of the sun, moon, and earth., we live and breathe and get 

 our being. — Concerning planetary influence, as it is, in a medi- 

 cal sense, certainly too remote, I have nothing to offer; and shall 

 leave it to the votaries of horoscopes, and to the admirers of the 

 celebrated Dr. Dee, and Farquhar's inimitable astrologer, who 

 placed, with such dexterous aptitude, " Forceps, Fumes, Dix- 

 mude, Namur, Brussels, and Charleroy," among the constella- 

 tions in the zodiac, there to remain as long as any placed by the 



• What honours are due to the memory of Mayer and Euler, as well as 

 Newton and La Place, on this head! 



learned 



