1820.] the Rev. Dr. Hales. 167 



of the column of liquid necessary to drive each on. These expe- 

 riments led him to observe a very unexpected and surprising 

 phenomenon ; namely, that water cannot be made to pass from 

 the arteries into the veins, though blood passes with freedom ; 

 and that certain places of these vessels which refuse a passage 

 to water allow beer to pass v-'ith the greatest facihty. He had 

 measured how much the resistance of the viscera and of the 

 principal vessels of the human body could amount to by deter- 

 inining the height of the column of liquid necessary to rupture 

 them ; and he found that this resistance was far superior to the 

 violence to which they had any chance of being exposed. He 

 tried the effects of spirituous liquors, of acids, astringents, 

 emollients, &c. upon the viscera and vessek of animals newly 

 slain. The treatise terminates Avith a set of experiments on 

 urinary calcuh, and on their solvents. These observations and 

 experiments are highly worth the perusal of the physician and 

 chemist. He did not indeed succeed in his attempts to ascer- 

 tain the nature of these bodies, nor was it possible for him to 

 do so ; because destructive distillation, the method which he 

 employed, is not calculated to make us acquainted with the 

 constituents of animal bodies. But his experiments show at 

 least that the previously received opinions upon this subject 

 were erroneous ; and had his notions been taken up and followed 

 out, accurate conceptions respecting these bodies would haA'e 

 been much sooner formed than they were. It deserves to be 

 mentioned, to the honour of Hales, that several chemical papers 

 upon the urinary calculi, some published as late as 17S9, hardly 

 throw any more light upon the constitution of these bodies than 

 had been already thrown upon the subject by the genius of Dr. 

 Hales. 



The Hajmastatics, which constitutes the second volume of the 

 common editions of Hales's Statical Essays, was translated into 

 French by M. de .Sauvage, of the Royal Society of Montpellier. 

 The reputation which Hales had acquired by the publication 

 of these two works successively was so great that the IJniversity 

 of Oxford was induced, without any solicitation on his part, to 

 confer on him the title of Doctor in Divinity. This honour is so 

 much the more remarkable because it is not very frequently 

 conferred upon any one who has not been educated at Oxford. 



Dr. Hales's experiments having made him acquainted with the 

 effects which spirituous liquids produce upon the blood and the 

 viscera when taken internally, his philanthropy induced him to 

 endeavour to render the knowledge of these effects as extensive 

 as possible. This led him to publish in 1734 a dissertation 

 agamst the use of spirituous liquids, which he entitled 

 " Friendly Advice to the Drinkers of Brandy." He paints in it 

 the fatal effects of this sort of indulgence in such lively colours 

 as might, one would suppose, be sufficient to deter the boldest 

 drunkard from indulaing in his favourite vice. But the unfortu-- 



