PROO | y e 
Lo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, : 
OU will excuse me, if I take the 
liberty to express my disappro- 
bation of one part of the “Report of 
Diseases,” for April. I remember being 
impressed with the same feelings on a 
former occasion, for a similar, reason; 
but I cannot readily advert to the pas- 
sage at this moment. Your able and 
ingenious reporter, whose feelings I 
should be sorry to hurt by the most dis- 
tant appearance of illiberality, has ad- 
mitted into his Report an insulated pas- 
sage from the writings of Dr. Beddoes, 
which, I must say, seems too general to 
prove any thing; and which, like other 
enumerations of prognostics, may have a 
pernicious tendency in minds, totally 
unacquainted with the uncertainty of 
this branch of Nosology. Persons of 
strong imaginations, and weak consti- 
tutions, are daily injured on this account, 
by consulting books of domestic medi- 
cine; and it is very often no easy task to 
convince them, that they are not. under 
the influence of one or more disorders, 
there enumerated. Such impressions, 
from the intimate connexion of mind 
and body, produce frequently the most 
dangerous effects, and induce many to 
try the whole round of newspaper spe- 
cifics... 7 
In the present instance, every medical 
man knows, that the remark of Dr. 
Beddoes, as applied to particular con- 
stitutions, is perfectly just and useful. 
But at the same time, a fondness for 
general positions may, and often does, 
injure the cause of truth: and [ am per- 
suaded, that half of your readers (if that 
remark were to be received without any 
qualification or restriction) must in- 
stantly imagine themselves to be incipient 
paralytics. Let any man of sedentary 
habits deny, if he can, that he is in the 
' same predicament, if the observation of 
Dr. Beddoes be established in this ge- 
neral way; ‘strictly speaking, whoever 
has less feeling, or voluntary. motion, 
than he would have had at any given 
period, if no noxious power had operated 
upon his nervous system, may be con- 
_ sidered as an incipient paralytic.” 
I think your Reporter very benevolent 
and judicious, in cautioning all against 
the neglect of early symptoms: and I 
would add to his admonitions, by re- 
commending, in every such case, an 
application to men of great practice, and 
established reputation. I do sincerely 
wish, forthe cause of suffering humanity, 
Monruty Mac. No. 189, “e 
Derivation of the Names of Places. 
138 
that the proposal of Dr. Harrison, of 
‘ Horncastle, for securing to, persons at a 
distance from the metropolis, the me- 
dical attendance of men of regular edu- 
cation, had met with the attention it 
deserved. This country, in the lower 
classes of society, is the victim of parish- 
doctors, and uneducated apothecaries. 
Thousands die by the ignorance, and 
still more by the neglect, of these village 
practitioners: and the greatest blessing 
which could be conferred upon society, 
would be the interference of the legis- 
lature, and our college of physicians, 
with regard to the character and abilities 
of every man, who presumes to take 
charge of the health, even of the most 
contemptible hamlet. 
Your’s, &c. A. Bi Ey 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
BEG to correct an error in a letter 
signed A. B.°in your Magazine 
for January last, where Agricola 
should be read for Ostorius. I fear the 
letter you printed from, was not so 
legibiy written as it ought to have been. 
- Inow wish, through your publication, 
to present the public with translations of 
some old names of stations, and divisions 
of the kingdom, not as yet rationally 
explained: should you approve of my 
design, Mr. Editor, I may extend my 
plan to ail the places in Antoninus’s Iti- 
nerary, which have hitherto been mis- 
taken, and refer your readers to such as 
have already been rightly explained. 
As our old settlements were uniformly 
named from their features of nature, and 
as we are liable from measurement only, 
erroneously to fix stations where. they 
have no claims from their situations, I 
mean tu prove some of the following 
from their denominations. 
But first, I beg to premise, that in 
naming lands, streams, &c. it appears 
that our first inhabitants had a variety 
of particulars to consider. They could 
not denote water by a word for fire, noc 
a valley by a name for hill; they con- 
sequently called every part of nature by 
an appropriate name. But our hills 
were without number ; and to have given 
them all proper and distinguishing names 
as heights, seems, at first sight, to have 
been impossible. It was necessary 
therefore, that a sufficient number of 
short syllables, or roots, beginning with g 
vowel, should be adopted. Yo form a 
variety of names from these, which 
should become proper ones, as in the 
5 -Onental 
