1809. }° 
vations, which he would wish to inculcate 
Or impress. Even in works of no ordi- 
nary value, the merit often does not 
consist so much in the thoughts them- 
selves, as in the selection and arrange- 
ment of the words, by which they are 
embodied and made, as it were, visible 
to the reader. Knowledge is not power, 
unless. accompanied with the faculty of 
communicating it. It is by the drapery 
of thought, the artful manufactory of 
composition, that we are delighted in 
writers, who.may have been long, and 
often.anticipated, both in their subject, 
and in all their information with regard 
to it, by men who possessed indeed the 
raw material, but were not able or dis- 
posed to workit up intoa state, proper for 
the purposes of ornament, or utility. 
But such remarks can scarcely be strained 
#0 far as, in any manner, to apply to the 
humble and restricted walk of a medical 
essayist. Although be may be allowed, 
especially after having often gone the 
same rounds, to deviate occasionally 
from his proper beat, to collect any fruit 
ec flower, which may spring up by the 
way-side, 
The writer has been often thought to 
abound too much, for the professed ob- 
ject of this article, in observations ap- 
parently of.a merely moral nature ; but it 
has been. by those who have not suffici- 
ently considered how closely physical is 
connected with. moral science, which are 
in fact as intimately and indivisibly in- 
volved, as mind is with matter in the 
composition of man. To pretend to 
understand the regulation even of his 
corporeal functions, without having ac- 
quired some acquaintance with his su- 
perior powers, would imply the grossest 
folly, and the most unpardonable empi- 
ricism. In a state of highly wrought 
ewilization, like the present, where the 
understanding is laboriously cultivated, 
and other feelings than those which we 
inherit, in common with the inferior 
auimals, are cultivated, diversified, and 
refined, he would be ill qualified to snp- 
port the character, and to perform the 
important office, of a: physician, who, 
satished merely with careful dissections, 
or inspections of the body, was wholly to 
neglect, or insufficiently to attend to, that 
higher anatomy, and more interesting 
branch of physiological research, which 
have tor their object the imagination, the 
passions, and the other component prins 
ciples of the intellectual organization. 
& case of hypochondsiasis, that has 
Mon7zuxry Mac. No. 186, ; 
Report.of Diseases, eut 
~~. n 
lately fallen under the notice of the re- 
porter, was remarkable, as being a nearly 
regular intermittent. The low fit en- 
creased with tolerable punctuality every 
third day; the patient could give no rea 
son for his distress, and yet was unable 
to resist its periodical attack, Clouds 
and darkness were round about him, 
although to an indifferent spectator, 
every thing in his external situation was 
shining, and prosperous. This specious, 
and extraneous prosperity, was perhaps 
the cause of thatinward condition, which 
was, in fact, the more to be deplored, as 
it had no ostensible claim upon our sym- 
pathy and compassion. Opulence is the 
natural source of indolence, and indo 
lence of disease; necessity, inasmuch as - 
it leads to exertion, is*the mother. of 
hilarity, as it proverbially 1s of invention, 
If we wish for habitual cheerfulness, we 
must work for it. There is no. royal 
road to good spirits. 
The reporter has recently heen. 
witness to a restoration. from hope- 
less disease, a kind of resurrection, 
which he attributed, in a great mea= 
sure, to ai undisturbed tranquillity on - 
the part of the patient, which aided 
the operations of nature, and gave an 
efficiency, altogether unexpected, to the 
applications of professional art. The 
patient was one of the society of friends, 
A society, whose peaceful and temperate 
habits, and tenets, are as favourable to 
health, as they are to piety and virtue, 
with whom christianity consists princi- 
pally in composure, and self-regulation, 
constitutes the essence of religion. 
That happily arranged, and well-adjusted 
mind, which is not easily thrown into 
disorder by the €xternal agitations of 
life, in every scene, and upon all occae 
sions, gives an incalculable superiority 
and advantage; but never appears 30 
strikingly conspicuous, and beneficial, as 
‘on the couch of torture, or in the chame 
ber of disease. Under such circum- 
stances, death waits, as it were, to coil- 
template, before it seizes its prey. But, 
in general, on the contrary, the termi- 
nation of life is prematurely quickened 
by the horror excited at its approach. 
Fear precipitates the desceut to the 
grave. " 
In several cases of a phthysical cha- 
racter, which have of late come under 
the reporter’s management, he has found 
very sensible, and he hopes radical, ad- 
vantage, accrue from the frequently re= 
péated use of blisters; a species of 
4K remedy, 
