THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TP ANSiACEIONS. 
[March 29, 1873. 
778 
.stantly seized with a passion for making schedules. It 
may also be said with truth that any knowledge respect¬ 
ing plants or animals or other objects around us, is much 
more valuable than a great deal taught at schools which 
has no reference in particular to anything on the earth 
beneath or in the waters under the earth. 
NuGiE Canoed Medico: Lays by the Poet Laureate of 
the New Town Dispensary. Second Edition. Edin¬ 
burgh : Edmonston and Douglas. 1873. 
Besides his well-earned reputation and position as a 
medical practitioner and academic teacher, Dr. Douglas 
Maclagan, of Edinburgh, enjoys considerable local fame 
as a song-writer and singer. The “grey metropolis of 
the north,” in all her professions, has been distinguished 
for the number of her wits and versifiers,—London her¬ 
self having few better names to show than Aytoun and 
Martin (who wrote under the well-known nom de guerre 
of Bon Gaultier), Lord Neaves, Patrick Robertson, 
Outram, Ballantine, Sidey, and Blackie. Nor can Dr. 
Douglas Maclagan be omitted from the list. His “ Nugse 
Canorse Medicse,” of which the second edition is now before 
ns, abounds with lyrics, nearly all humorous in their 
tenor, in celebration of the annual social gatherings of the 
past and present officers of the Edinburgh New Town 
Dispensary. Wonderful command of metre, dexterous 
rhyming, and a happy flow of animal spirits, rather than 
wit, are the chief characteristics of the volume. Dr. 
Maclagan makes no pretension to the exquisite humour 
and liquid versification of the authors of the “Bon 
Gaultier Ballads;” nor even to the far inferior effusions 
of Lord Neaves, as reprinted from Maga. Add to this 
that his vein is almost purely local, and in its expres¬ 
sion so essentially Scotch as almost to necessitate a glossary 
for us Southrons. With all these drawbacks, however, 
lie has certainly contrived to amuse us; though not, of 
course, in the degree in which he must have tickled the 
midriffs and shaken the sides of his fellow-convivialists, 
when a good dinner, with floods of champagne, followed 
by the grateful tumbler of his native land", had promoted 
“‘good will towards men,” if not “peace on earth.” We 
are afraid to give our readers a specimen of his Scottish 
vein, as the effort to pronounce the words might seriously 
affect the muscles of articulation, or probably end in te¬ 
tanus, let alone aphasia. But the following on “ Liebig’s 
Physiological Chemistry,” may be read with safety, and 
even considerable enjoyment:— 
“ If you please, Mr. Preses, make use of your time, 
And don’t let’s get dry in the throttle, 
But take my advice, as the claret is prime, 
And order us in a fresh bottle. 
We’ve Liebig’s authority, well you’re aware, 
That we men of the North can consume 
More alcohol far than the Southrons dare, 
Without being the worse for its fume. 
■“ This Liebig has found out our life’s golden rule, 
And much will it please honest people, 
To find that he proves Father Mathew a fool, 
And that life is maintained by the tipple. 
For by oxygenation to vapour we turn ; 
This, he says, one of Nature’s strange laws is; 
And without hydrocarbons within us to bum, 
We perish by eremacausis. 
'“ Teetotallers dabble in coffee and tea, 
And think themselves wise all the while ; 
But if Liebig be right, these ’ll not do for me, 
For he says that they turn to bile. 
No ! a taste of the alcohol’s nearer the thing 
For a man of poetic vocation; 
For your bard couldn’t laugh, and still less could he sing, 
Without elements of respiration. 
“ Thus, man’s but a big spirit-lamp, as we see; 
And lamps all require you to cram ’em 
With plenty of spirit of good density, 
In order to alerefiammam. 
Then keep up the alcohol stimulus all; 
Thus alone you ’ll preserve your condition; 
Or you’ll find yourselves soon in whatBennett would call 
A state of abnormal nutrition.” 
The “ Battle o’ Glen Tilt ” is a long and, in some 
respects, felicitous account of the repulse sustained by 
Dr. Balfour and a company of botanists at the hands of 
the Duke of Athol, in their attempt to pierce the un¬ 
broken solitudes of the Glen. This poem, it is right to 
add, is most effectively illustrated by the Brothers Faed, 
Ballantyne, Douglas, Archer, and Crawford, names well 
known to the artistic world on both sides of the Tweed. 
Their sketches are photographed for the present volume 
by Mr. E. W. Dallas, and most ludicrous, occasionally 
weird, they are. “A Dinner at Douglas’s Hotel,” in Irish 
dialect, is not unworthy of Father Prout; though we hope 
the. unprofessional prostration to which the medical con- 
vivialists were reduced on the occasion, was the result 
of poetic, not of vinous, license. Another capital lyric is 
that intitled the “ HCsculapian,” from which we extract 
the following humourous reference to the ex-Professor of 
Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh 
“ Lyon Playfair last winter took up a whole hour 
To prove so much mutton is just so much power; 
He might have done all that he did twice as well 
By an hour of good feeding in Slaney’s Hotel; 
And instead of the tables he hung on the wall, 
Have referred to the table in this festive hall; 
And as for his facts—have more clearly got at ’em 
From us than from Sappers and Miners at Chatham. 
Whilst like good jolly souls, 
We emptied our bowls, 
And so washed down our grub 
In a style worth the name, 
Wealth, honour, and fame 
Of the Royal Society Club.” 
Dr. Douglas Maclagan intimates that the proceeds, if 
any, of his volume are to be dedicated to the New Edin¬ 
burgh Infirmary. We can assure him that the qualifica¬ 
tion which we italicise is out of place, and that his ‘ Nugse ’ 
will owe their success, not so much to their charitable 
object as to their intrinsic merits. 
BOOKS RECEIVED. 
Handbook foe the Physiological Laboeatoey. By 
E. Klein, M.D., J. Buedon-Sandeeson, M.D., F.R.S., 
Michael Fostee, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., and T. Laudek 
Beunton, M.D., D.Sc. Edited by J. Buedon-Sandee¬ 
son. Two Volumes. London : J. and A. Churchill. 
1873. From the Publishers. 
A Handbook of Hygiene. By Geoege Wilson, M.D. 
Edin. London : J. and A. Churchill. 1873. From 
the Publishers. 
Ozone and Antozone : Theie Histoey and Natuee. 
When, Where, Why, and How is Ozone observed in 
the Atmosphere ? Illustrated with Wood Engravings, 
Lithographs, and Chromo-Lithographs. By Coenelius 
B. Fox, M.D. Edin. London : J. and A. Churchill. 
1873. From the Publishers. 
On Puteefiees and Antiseptics. By John Dougall, 
M.D. Glasgow. 1873. 
