the History of the General Council Firmness-Perseverance - Conduct and General Assembly of the Lee- to Patients-Prognosis-Medical Juward Islands, with the contents of risprudence - Insanity of Mindthe intended work. -Death by Poison-External Violence--Self-Murder. LXXXIX. THE HOSPITAL PUPIL, R. and the author of several medical works, and some others, in good esteem with the public. The present little work contains four letters. I. On the Qualifications necessary for a Youth intended for the Profession of Medicine or Surgery-Topics: Prefatory Observations-Mental Abilities-Want of Capacity Neglect of Education - Want of sympathetic Tenderness-Volatility of Disposition-Pecuniary Resources -Professional Education not attainable by a trifling Expence-False Estimate of Parents, and the injurious Consequences to Students. - EXTRACT FROM LETTER 1. 1 "A sympathetic concern, and a tender interest for the sufferings of others, ought to characterize all those who engage themselves in a profession, the object of which should be to mitigate or remove, one great portion of the calamities to which hu manity is subject. For he who can view the sufferings of a fellow-creature with unconcern, will, there is too much reason to fear, sometimes neglect the opportunities of administering the required relief: that relief which he could with ease bestow, and which he withholds only from his not feeling, with due force, the afflicting urgency of the claim which is made on him. "In consideration of your own peace of mind, for the sake of him, whose soul is as dear to you as your own, and in the name of suffering huII. On the Education of a Youth in- manity, I conjure you, should you tended for the Profession of Physic and perceive, that from some little error Surgery.Topics: Present Mode in his education, the mind of your -Objections-Universities-Plan of son is narrowed-that the love of self Education proposed Languages- faultily preponderates, and but few Anatomy the Alphabet of Medical marks of feeling and kind sympathy Knowledge-Natural Philosophy-show themselves, strive with unremit Chemistry Drawing-Short-hand Notes-Botany, &c.-Hospital Attendance Advantages of the proposed Order of Studies. III. On the best Means of obtaining Instruction, by a Pupil attending an Hospital, in the customary Mode Topics: Moral Conduct-Pleasure, its interference with Study-CourageIndustry-Short-hand Notes-Order of Study-Importance of Practical Anatomy-Nosology-Symptomatology-Partiality of Attenifon to Operations Clinical Lectures-Chemistry-Natural Philosophy-Multiplicity of Studies-Correction of those States of the Mind inimical to Study -Lectures of one Season insufficient -Midwifery. IV. Hints for the Conduct of a young Man, entering on the Duties of the medical Profession.Topics: Navy Surgeon Conciliatory Manners-Conduct to professional Men To the Ignorant-To Nostrum Mongers Consultation Hasty Judginent, ill Consequences of-Attention to the first Stage of Disease ting zeal to correct so baneful a distemper of the mind; and be assured of your full success, before you make him a member of a profession, in the performing the common offices of which, self-love will frequently be called on to abandon those indulgences it enjoys with the greatest delight. "Parental fondness, it must be allowed, is too apt to promote an unsocial turn: to encourage a devotion to self-love, and to engraft the pernicious principle, that the grand and leading object of life's business is to sacrifice at the altar of this detestable idol. When this has been the case, and particularly, if it has been neglected to inculcate in infancy the tenderness due to surrounding animals; and in youth the leading principle of Christianity, a narrow distorted mind will be the result, which makes no other's sorrows its own. It knows not those exquisite sensations, which the benevolent feel, when they behold the pale and wan countenance which pain has shrunk up and wi thered, dilate with gratitude and delight on experiencing the comparative ecstasy arising from the return of long lost ease. "Can he whose conduct is directed by a mind so framed, whose constant aim has been the self-appropriation of every blessing; and who, perhaps, contemplates the miseries of others only to heighten by comparison the blessings he himself possesses;-Can he, I ask, be expected to accomplish the arduous task of interposing, with anxious assiduity, between his fellow creatures, and the host of calamities with which disease menaces them I know your mind is with me on this occasion, and I am aware how little this can apply to your son; but, remember these words are not intended for him." p. 11-13. "The one, who has gained the greatest portion of knowledge, is timid and diffident, from the consciousness of how much he has yet to learn: whilst the other is confident from ignorance, not supposing there to be knowledge beyond what he possesses: for he who mounts the hill of science beholds the view of countries, he has yet to explore, expand around him at every step; but he that grovels below, believes that all that is worth attending to is comprised in the murky valley in which he dwells. "The diffidence of the one, joined with perhaps the aukwardness of a man of study, and the depression proceeding from the neglect of the world. always keeps him back: he seldom is noticed but by those who draw, from his unassuming manners, conclusions of an unfavourable nature; imputing to ignorance that which proceeds from real knowledge, combined with modesty. The confidence of the other, aided by those manners which much intercourse with the busy world creates, will draw a favourable attention, and induce the multitude to believe him to be fully in possession of that professional knowledge, in which he is so miserably deficient.” p. 22, 23. XC. PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS, being a Collection of Memoirs, Dissertations, and Experimental Investigations, relating to various Branches of Natural Philosophy and Mechanics. Together with Letters to several Per sons on Subjects connected with Science and Useful Improvement. By BEN. JAMIN COUNT OF RUMFORD, LL. D. F. R. S. &c. &c. Vol. I. with a Portrait and thirteen Plates, 8vo. THE preface to this work informs us, that "most of the papers contained in this volume have already appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, and some of them have been translated into foreign languages; yet (the author says,) as in this publication I have carefully revised and corrected each of those papers, and as I have added notes and supplements to several of them, I flatter myself that the volume will not be altogether uninteresting, or unworthy a place in the libraries of those who collect books of this kind. "The second volume, which will consist chiefly of original letters, written on various scientific subjects, and on useful inventions and improvements, will, no doubt, be generally thought more interesting." The first part of this work is occupied with an account of some experiments on gunpowder, and fills 114 pages; this is followed by experiments to try the force of fired gunpowder, with supplementary observations, and a short account of some experiments made with cannon, and also of some attempts to improve field artillery. These accounts take up the four first papers. The fifth contains experiments on the production of air from water, exposed with various substances to the action of light. The sixth contains experiments made to determine the relative quantities of moisture absorbed from the atmosphere by different substances used for clothing. Being engaged in a course of experiments upon the conducting pow ers of various bodies with respect to heat, and particularly of such substances as are commonly made use of for clothing, in order to see if I could discover any relation between the conducting powers of those substances and their power of absorbing moisture from the atmosphere, I made the following experiments: "Having provided a quantity of each of the under-mentioned substances in a state of the most perfect cleanness and purity, I exposed them, spread out upon clean china plates, twenty-four hours, in the dry air of a very warm room (which had been heated every day for several months, by a German stove) the last six hours of the heat being kept up to 85° of FARENHEIT'S thermometer; after which I entered the room with a very accurate balance, and weighed equal quantities of these various substances, as expressed in the following table. "This being done, and each substance being equally spread out upon a very clean china plate, they were removed into a very large uninhabited room, upon the second floor, where they were exposed 48 hours upon a table placed in the middle of the room, the air of the room being at the temperature of 45° F.; after which they were carefully weighed The various Substances. (in the room) and were found to weigh as undermentioned. They were then removed into a very damp cellar, and placed upon a table, in the middle of a vault, where the air, which appeared by the hy grometer to be completely saturated with moisture, was at the temperature of 45° F.; and in this situation they were suffered to remain three days and three nights, the vault being hung round, during all this time, with wet linen clothes, to render the air as damp as possible, and the door of the vault being shut. "At the end of three days I en tered the vault, with the balance, and weighed the various substances upon the spot, when they were found to weigh as is expressed in the third column of the following table: Sheep's wool Beaver's fur.. The fur of a Russian hare Eider down....... Silk. Raw single thread Ravelings of white taffety Linen. Fine lint Ravelings of fine linen Cotton wool pilver wire, very fine, gilt, and flatted, being the ravelings of gold lace "N. B. The weight made use of in these experiments was that of Cologne, the parts, or least divisions, being part of a mark, consequently 1000 of these parts make about 52 grains troy. "I did not add the silver wire to the bodies above-mentioned, from any idea that that substance could possibly imbibe moisture from the atmosphere; but I was willing to see whether a metal placed in air saturated with water, is not capable of receiving a small addition of weight from the moisture attracted by it, and attached to its surface; from the result of this experiment, however, it should seem that no such attraction subsists between the metal I made use of and the watery vapour dissolved in air. "I was totally mistaken in my conjectures relative to the results of the experiments with the other sub. stances. As linen is known to attract water with so much avidity; and as, on the contrary, wool, hair, feathers, and other like animal substances, are made wet with so much difficulty, I had little doubt but that linen would be found to attract moisture from the atmosphere with much greater force than any of those substances; and that, under similar circumstances, it would be found to contain much more water; and I was much confirmed in this opinion upon recollecting the great difference in the apparent dampness of linen and of woollen clothes, when they are both exposed to the same atmosphere. But these experiments have convinced me, that all my speculations were founded upon erroneous principles. It should seem, that those bodies which are the most easily wetted, or which receive water, in its unelastic form, with the greatest ease, are not those which in all cases attract the watery vapour dissolved in the air with the greatest force. : "Perhaps the apparent dampness of linen, to the touch, arises more from the ease with which that substance parts with the water it con tains, than from the quantity of water it actually holds in the same manner as a body appears hot to the touch, in consequence of its parting freely with its heat, while another body, which is actually at the same temperature, but which withholds its heat with greater obstinacy, affects the sense of feeling much less violently.. "It is well known that woollen clothes, such as flannels, &c. worn next the skin, greatly promote insen sible perspiration. May not this arise principally from the strong attraction which subsists between wool and the watery vapour which is continually issuing from the human body? That it does not depend entirely upon the warmth of that covering, is evident; for the same degree of warmth, produced by wearing more clothing of a different kind, does not produce the same effect. "The perspiration of the human body being absorbed by a covering of flannel, it is immediately distributed through the whole thickness of that substance, and by that means exposed by a very large surface, to be carried off by the atmosphere; and the loss of this watery vapour, which the flannel sustains on the one side by evaporation, being immediately restored from the other, in consequence of the strong attraction between the flannel and this vapour, the pores of the skin are disencumbered, and they are continually surrounded by a dry, warm, and salubrious atmosphere. "I am astonished that the custom of wearing flannel next the skin should not have prevailed more universally. I am confident it would prevent a multitude of diseases; and I know of no greater luxury than the comfortable sensation which arises from wearing it, especially after one is a little accustomed to it. "It is a mistaken notion, that it is too warm a clothing for summer, 1 have worn it in the hottest climates, and in all seasons of the year, and never found the least inconvenience from it. It is the warm bath of a perspiration confined by a linen shirt, wet with sweat, which renders the summer heats of the tropical climates so insupportable; but flannel promotes perspiration, and favours its evaporation; and evaporation, as is well known, produces positive cold. "I first began to wear flannel, not from any knowledge which I had of its properties, but merely upon the recommendation of a very able phy sician, (SIR RICHARD JEBB); and when I began the experiments, of which I have here given an account, I little thought of discovering the physical cause of the good effects which I had experienced from it; nor had I the most distant idea of mentioning the circumstance. I shall be happy, however, if what 1 have said or done upon the subject should induce others to make a trial of what I have so long experienced with the greatest advantage, and which I am confident they will find to contribute greatly to health, and consequently to all the other comforts and enjoy ment of life. "I shall then think these experiments, trifling as they may appear, by far the most fortunate, and the most important ones I have ever made." p. 264-269. We have selected the above experiment from a consideration of its general utility in reference to health. In the seventh paper are experiments made to determine the relative intensities of the light emitted by luminous bodies. In the eighth, an account of some experiments on coloured shadows. Paper the ninth, conjectures respecting the principles of the harmony of colours. The tenth contains an enquiry concerning the chemical properties of light. The eleventh is a supplement to the last subject. The twelfth is an enquiry concerning the weight or ponderability which has been ascribed to heat, and the thirteenth is a supplement to the last paper. To each of the papers is prefixed a complete analysis, and the volume contains 390 pages. XCI. SECRET MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF PETERSBURG, particularly towards the Close of the Reign of Catharine II. and the Commence ment of that of Paul I. containing a Number of Anecdotes and historical Facts respecting the Persian War, the March of the Russian Armies against France, the Disgrace and Death of Suvarrof, the financial Operations of Paul the First, his do mestic Life, and his tragical End followed by justificative State Papers, among which is the Constitution for the Imperial Family. Translated from the French. Vol. III. 8vo. HIS volume is divided into five Tchapters, historical anecdotes, and state papers. Chap. I. contains an account of the PERSIAN WAR, the origin of which is given in an account of the four brothers of the Eunuch, Mehemet Khan, who having assisted him in obtaining the supreme government, refused to acknowledge him as their Sovereign, and wishing to remain masters of the provinces they occupied, united against him, in which they were assisted by the tzar Heraclias, prince of Georgia, and vassal to Russia. "Mehemet defeated his brothers in several battles; two of them were made prisoners, and beheaded in his camp; the other two escaped, though not without difficulty, from this sanguinary conqueror." p. 6. arms; "The two brothers of Mehemet Khan had, however, again taken up but being defeated a second time, they had no other resource left but flight. They at first retired to Baku and Derbent, with their wives and treasures; but not thinking themselves in safety there, they chose finally to take refuge, the one at Astrakhan, and the other at Kislar, a small Russian port on the Caspian. All these events passed in the years 1784, 1785, and 1786. "General Paul Potemkin, (Patiomkine,) a relation of Prince Potemkin, then commanded in Caucasus, and at Kislar. Apprized that the Persian Prince was coming thither in quest of an asylum, he pretended not to be able to receive him, alledging that Russia being at peace with Persia, he did not wish to expose her to a war, by taking rebels VOL. I. Notwith under his protection. standing this refusal, the fugitives, pursued by the ships of Mehemet, and confiding in the sacred rights of hospitality and misfortune, so respected in the East, presented themselves in the road-stead of Kislar. The Russian commandant, informed that their ship was filled with riches, as well in gold as in valuable jewels and stuffs, immediately dispatched some armed boats. which went to meet them. The Persians received the Russians on board with great demonstrations of joy, as their deliverers-Here the pen is ready to drop from my hand-But, no! let it still inform indignant Europe of a crime which the court of Russia knew of immediately, and which she even appeared to sanction by the impunity of the delinquents-what do I say?-by the distinctions and favours with which it continued to load them. "The Russian soldiers were scarcely received on board the ship, before they fell on all the Persians that they found there, and butchered them in cold blood, at the very moment when those unfortunate people were come to embrace them as deliverers. Women, children, old men, no one was spared: those who escaped the murderous sword were thrown headlong into the sea. The unhappy prince was one of this number. Attempting to save himself by swimming, with one hand he caught hold of the Russian boat, when a stroke of a sabre separated that hand from his arm. He sunk, re-appeared, and, with the hand which he had remaining, he again seized hold of the boat. Another stroke of a sabre cut that off likewise: the quivering hand remained in the boat. The Prince having sunk again, crimsoned the sea with his blood, and a last thrust with a pike dispatched him to the bottom. "This horrible massacre happened in the summer of 1786. The ship was carried in triumph into the harbour, and her treasures became the prey of Potemkin, of the commandant and his accomplices. "This murder and robbery had been committed too publicly to re prince, who, a few years after, was acknow *The title of rebel was then given to a ledged as lawful king of Persia, and for whose re-establishment war was declared against Mehemet. Y y |