176 
quired of an eminent merchant at Paris,, 
in what way he could be of fervice to the 
interefts of commerce,—he replied, mere~ 
ly,  Laiffez nous faire,” —Let us alone.— 
A fimilar obfervation may as Well be ap-. 
phed to the health and welfare of our 
phyfical frame; more efpecially during 
the incipient and imyperfeet developement 
of vitality. A medical pion 1s too 
fond of doing fomething. He deems it 
necefiary to produce fome inter nal, or to 
perform ‘fome external, operation. Where- 
as, In a great feuiaad of cafes, the 
bet thing ‘he can do, is to do nothing: 
—to fiand asa kind of fentinel by the 
body of his patient, in order to avert the 
agency of any hoftile power, rather than 
to adminifter what is direétly or pofitively: 
beneficial. His utility for the mot part 
confiits In preventing injury: he occupies 
a pott which might “otherwife have been 
filled by one incompetent to the fitua- 
tion. 
Thefe remarks are more particularly . 
connected with the phytical calamities of 
elildhood. 
When we contemplate a church-yard, 
the earth of which is compofed princi- 
pally of the bodies of infants, it is natu- 
ral for us to fancy, but furely unreafona- 
ble to beheve, t that thefe beings were 
born for no other purpofe than to die; or 
that it is within the defign of Nature, that 
the pangs of production, on the part of 
the mother, thould on that of her off- 
fpring be almoit immediately fucceeded 
by the fire ele of diffolution. Faelt mutt 
exit fomewhere—it cannot be in the 
Providence of God—it mutt therefore at- 
tach to the unprovidence and. indifcre- 
tion of man. 
More fatal confequences eriginate from 
Wnorance than from voluntary crime. In- 
fanticide, when it is perpetrated by the 
dagger of maternal def) veration, or in the 
agony of anticipated difgrace, is a fubject 
of aitonifhment and of horror. But if 
an helplefs victim be drugged to death, 
wr poifoned by the forced ingurgitation 
af naufeous and effent: ally ei: po- 
tions, we iament the refult merely with- 
out thinking about the means which ine- 
vitably led to its occurrence. 
Confcience tecis no concern in cafes 
of medicinal murder.* 
* The too ordinary habit of jefting upon 
this fubjeét in familiar of convivial converfa- 
tion, has an unbappy tendency to fear the 
heart, and leads us te regard with an inhuman 
and indecorous levity and indifference thofe 
3 
Report af Diseases. 
{March f, 
Next to Babies wine and other cordials 
ought to be peremptorily prohibited by 
the tutors and g guardians of mfancy. In- 
temperance is not an abfolute, but 2 re- 
lative thing. To a child a glafs of wine 
isa debauch. Ut bears the fame propor- 
tion to its conftitution as a bottle does te 
that of an adult. The unimpaired and 
fuperabundant excitability of an infant 
requires no extraordinary or artificial fti- 
mulus, Wine atiords not any permanent 
nourifhment or fupport. Jt contributes 
not in the Jeaft degree to the ftamina of 
the buman frame. It excites a temporary 
excefs of a¢tion, without adding to the 
materials, or increafing the ftrength of the 
contftitution. Whilit it awakens or enlivens 
the flame, 1t inevitably exhaufts the fuel 
from which its corrufcations originate. 
Alcehol in its various and however diluted 
modifications, ought not to be had re- 
courfe to, even in more mature and ad- 
vanced lite, except upon an emergency, 
ne a defect ef extemporary vigour 
obliges us to draw upon the future for 
fupply. .A perfon, however, fhould be 
very cautious and circumfpect before he 
in this manner mortgages his conttitution. 
There is a kind of compound intereft te 
be acquired in vital as well as pecuniary 
property. In our firft years, deviations 
comparatively flight from the line of fo- 
briety and nature, imtiet more effentiat 
injury on the unperteétly formed and in- 
futhciently cemented fabric, than it will 
be likely afterwards to receive from the 
attacks of habitual and more outrageous 
excefs, 
In confirmation of the Reporter's fen- 
tnnents and doctrine, he is happy to pro- 
duce the ideas on this fubjeet of fo emi- 
nent a man and praleey philofopher as. 
Mr. Locke, to whom his country is much 
indebted for the folidity of his remarks 
upon infantile treatment and education. 
yids words aré ticte : “ Perhaps it will be 
expected froin me that T fhould give fome 
diredions of phytic to prevent difeafes. For 
which I have only this one very facredly 
to be obferved: Never to give children 
any phy vlic for prevention. The obferva~ 
tion of what I have already adviled, will, 
I fuppofe, do better than apothecary’s 
drugs and medicines. Have a great care 
of tampering that way, leaft mftead of 
preventing, you draw on difeafes. Nor 
even upon every little indifpotition is phy- 
dark and horrible cataftrophies which fre- 
qnently originate. from profefional inadvert= 
ence or miitake. 
fic 
