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trials be approved and confirmed, this is fo far from 
proving a difcouragement to its life, that we ought 
to regard the difcovery of fuch a one as a valuable 
acquifition to the province of phyfic, efpecially if 
it is applicable in defperate and obfiinate cafes. The 
Bella-donna, on the contrary, fuppofing future trials 
Ihould prove it as happily fuccefsful as Profefior 
Lambergen has experienced it, is a medicine of a 
different kind j inafmuch as its operation is mild, 
when compared with that, which attends the exhi- 
bition of many others : we fhould therefore have 
double reafon to rejoice at the difcovery. 
XIII. An Account of fane of the Antiquities 
dif covered at Herculaneum, See. In a 
Letter to Thomas Birch, D.D. Secret . 
R. S. By John Nixon, A. M. F. R. S . 
Reverend Sir, 
Read Feb. 24, / ■ ^ H E fubjedt of this letter are fome 
i curfory obfervations made by me 
laft fpring, upon viewing the curiofities found at 
Herculaneum, and the places adjacent. I deferred 
putting them into any order, till I came to town, and 
had feen, by perufing the Tranfadtions of the Royal 
Society, whether fome abler hand had not already 
prevented me, and made any further communication 
needlefs : but as I now find, that no notice has been 
hitherto taken of feveral particulars, which, in my 
humble 
