128 
Vaccination — Interrogations—Li,'cr* [Sept. 1 , 
ard to regulate the issue of Bank 
notes, thereby restraining the discretion 
and wisdom of Bank directors. 
Birmingham, Aug. 4,1811. Civrs. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
T seems to throw some light on the 
efficacy and physical cause of the 
cow-pox, that when the small pox was 
introduced by accident among the native 
Indians, of the province of Mauld, in 
l^outh America, in 1766, a countryman 
who had recovered from it, conceived 
the idea of curing others by cow’s milk 
administered as beverage and in clysters', 
and thereby, it is said, cured all whom 
he attended ! Mon. Lassone, physician 
to the Queen of France, tried the like 
means in 1779, as appears by the Medical 
Transactions of Paris, and succeeded in 
a degree; but, by an odd conceit, he 
mixed the milk with a decoction of parsley 
roots! 
I do not know whetlier the illustrious 
Jenxer has noticed this fact, but it ap¬ 
pears to deserve notice, as it points to 
some general analogy, or anti-variolous 
property, in the secretions of the cow, 
worthy of closer investigation. 
July 2, inn. A. D. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magaziiie. 
SIR, 
T he plan of teaching children by 
me ans of Questions arising out ot the 
subject to be taught, is of modern date; 
but is so efficacious, that I am desirous 
of knowing by whom the idea was first 
publicly promulgated. 
I mean questions without answers; for 
nothing can be more egregiously stupid 
than directly to connect answers with 
the questions, the sole purpose of the 
questions being to exercise the reasoning 
powers of the student, and to compel him 
to think and w-ork on his subject. 
By a wretched want of discrimination 
in this respect, I see modern works still 
published and used in schools, in which 
the answers are, with a superlative degree 
of folly, annexed to the questions; and in 
others, the questions aie given in the ex¬ 
act order of the text, so as to defeat their 
own purpose, by the imbecility of their 
regular arrangement! 
Tne only advantage of this interrogativs 
system is in the melange, and in hav- 
ing the questions without answers; and I 
am desirous of knowing to whom we are 
indebted for its introduction. 
Ped.^cogus, 
July 24, loll. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
N page 28 of your last Number, yott 
did me the favour to insert some re¬ 
marks on the great prevalence of the opi¬ 
nion, among the ancients, that there was 
a considerable connection between the 
state of the liver and that of the mind ; 
since which, several passages to the same 
effect have fallen under my notice, which 
I shall take the liberty to communicate, 
through the channel of your entertaining 
Magazine. 
Scapula, in his Greek Lexicon,observes, 
that olim dicebatur 
Ajunt quorundam hepati vitiura quoddam 
accidere, quod eos timidos reddat; ejus 
autem indicium vitiati Pallor est, qui tales 
timidos arguit.’’"* From the Greek 
nBVKV'j'oralia,^, comes our vulgar phrase 
zchite-liver'd, an epithet frequently applied 
to cowardly and malicious characters. 
In Italy the word fegatoso is applied 
to a person “ che ha neila faccia del ri- 
boUimento, con pustule rosse preveniente 
da sovercliio calore di sangue.’* 
It may be further remarked, that our 
word jealousyf seems to have been de¬ 
rived from giallo, on account of the 
yellowness of the skin of persons 
being tormented with this passion: so 
gloomy and uncomfortable views of any 
subject are commonly said to be taken 
with the jaundiced eye. In disordered 
states of tiie digestive organs, the secre¬ 
tions are sometimes so vitiated as to be 
changed in colour snd consistency ; the 
bile in particular often assumes a greeri 
appearance; t!ie absorption of such bile 
would give the cornea of the eve a green- 
]sh cast; hence jealousy has been said 
to be a green-eyed monster. 
The idea that was entertained of the 
great importance of this organ in the 
animal ceconomv, may indeed be deduced 
from t.be etymology of the word itself. 
Our English word liver is derived from 
the Anglo-Saxon Lyfer, which comes 
from their verb Lyrian, to live. I shall 
be much obliged to any of your ingenious 
correspondents vvho may be able to trace 
the etymology of the words used to denote 
this organ in other languages; I have 
subjoined a list of a great many of them, 
Anglo-Saxon, Lyfer. 
English, Liver. 
* The author refers his readers to ErasrrU 
Chil. Quaere, What is the exact meaning of 
the Greek verb n-uxaii^ts ? 
j- This word however has been by some 
etyiriologiscs, derived from the Greek ^ 75 X 35 . 
German, 
