278 Aledicine. 



same time, and perhaps still oftener that they are 

 diminished and wasted together."" The radical 

 defect in every inquiry of this kind is our unac- 

 quaintance with the nature of the vital principle, 

 a defect which the scantiness and imperfection of 

 all human knowledge does not seem likely speedily 

 to supply. 



In a review of the systematic arrangements of 

 medical knowledge, which have been undertaken 

 in the course of the eighteenth century, it would 

 be improper to pass without notice the learned 

 and laborious work of M. Lieutaud, first Phy- 

 sician to the Monarch of France, published nearly 

 fifty years ago, under the title of Synopsis Universce 

 Medicince. This singular work was attempted on 

 the plan of collecting all the facts that experience 

 has taught, without any reasoning concerning their 

 causes. But the total want of method, perhaps 

 the unavoidable result of the plan, continually intro- 

 duced such confusion as to render this performance 

 much less instructive and useful than might have 

 been expected. 



It may also appear improper to omit some no- 

 tice of a theory of fevers, formed by the late Sir 

 JohnPringle, which, from its peculiar character, 

 has been denominated the putrid theory. Having 

 been long conversant with the malignant diseases 

 of camps and military hospitals, that respectable 

 physician adopted the notion of miasmata and con-; 

 tagions operating like a ferment on the animal 

 fluids, and thereby producing putrid fevers. This 

 doctrine of fevers, however, is regarded as so 

 vague and improbable that few have been induced 

 to adopt it. 



•» The author Is aware that Dr. Darwin's theory makes provision t« 

 meet this difficulty and to explain it; but whether the explanation be suffi- 

 ciently satisfactory, reniains to be decided. 



