VOL. XXI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 423 



15252800 drachms, which if there be 8 millions of people, it is not 2 drachms 

 or -i. a pint of coffee a piece for a year. 



Concerning a Hydrocephalus. By Mr. John Freind.* N° 256, p. 318. 



The external dimensions of this head, taken before it was opened, were as 

 follow : 



Inches. 

 From the eyebrows over the crown to the nape 23 



* Dr. John Freind was not more distinguished for his skill and judgment as a physician, than for 

 his erudition and classical acquirements as a scholar. He was born at Croton in Northamptonshire, 

 in 1675, was sent to Westminster School, and from thence to Christ Church, Oxford. While he was 

 yet only in his 21st year, he, with the assistance of another student, published (1696) the 2 me- 

 morable orations of iEschines in Ctesiphontem, and of Demosthenes de Corona, accompanied with 

 an improved Latin translation, and explanatory notes. Not long after this, he resolved upon study- 

 ing physic, to which he accordingly applied with great assiduity. In 1703 he published his Emme- 

 nologia, in which he endeavoured to prove that the menstrual evacuation is the consequence of 

 plethora. In this work there is more of ingenious reasoning than of practical utility, and his manner 

 of accounting for the operation of certain eramenagogue medicines by the attenuation or thinning of 

 the blood, is wholly inadmissible. In 1704 he was chosen professor of chemistry at Oxford, and 

 the year following he attended Lord Peterborough in his military expedition to Spain; and afterwards 

 visited Rome and other parts of Italy. On his return to England in 1707, he wrote 2 tracts iu 

 defence of his patron Lord Peterborough, whose campaign of Valencia had excited the censure of 

 some opponents. In 1709 he published the chemical lectures which he had read at Oxford 5 years 

 before, under the title of Praelectiones Chymicae. He dedicated this work to Sir Isaac Newton, 

 upon whose principles he endeavoured to explain the leading phaenomena of chemistry, not being 

 aware of the diftisrence between the laws of gravitation and attraction, and those of chemical affinity. 

 In 1711 he attended the Duke of Ormond into Flanders, and on his return from thehce settled in 

 London. In 1716 he published the 1st and 3d books of Hippocrates de Morb. Popul. Gr. et. Lat. 

 with 9 Commentaries on Fevers. In 1722 he was elected to a seat in Parliament for Launceston in 

 Cornwall. The same year he was committed to the Tower, on a suspicion of being concerned with 

 Bishop Atterbury in a plot to bring in the Pretender. During his confinement as a state prisoner for 

 3 months, he employed himself in composing the chief part of his celebrated work, entitled The 

 History of Physic, from the time of Galen, to the beginning of the l6"th century, addressed to his 

 friend Dr. Mead who had interceded for his liberation, and who nobly presented him with all the 

 fees he had received from the author's patients, during his confiiiement in the Tower. In the work 

 last mentioned. Dr. Freind's object was to continue the History of Physic from the period where 

 Le Clerc had left otf, and this he has done in a very able manner. As he had a more profound 

 knowledge of the Greek language than Le Clerc, he was enabled to correct some few errors into 

 whicli that author had fallen respecting the later Greek physicians; and in particular he has given an 

 excellent view of the writings of the Arabian physicians. This work has been translated into most 

 of the European languages. It was translated into Latin by Dr. Wigan. After his release from the 

 Tower, Dr. Freind was made physician to ths Prince of Wales, and on the Prince's accession to the 

 throne, he was appointed physician to the Queen. He enjoyed these honours but a short time, dying 

 of a fever in 172S, aged 52. A sketch of his life and writings is given in Dr. Wigan's prefiice la - 

 Freind's Opera Omnia, fol. 1733.. 



