ors assimilating the London Institution, at which Dr Spurzheim delivered lectures, to some analogous institution in their own country patronized by government. At least we cannot other wise explain the error they have fallen into, of supposing that our Government has patronised Phrenology, and availed itself of its lights. No such thing has occurred, except in the case of the convicts examined by Mr Deville some years ago, and that experiment was conducted not by Government, but by individuals in the employment of Government, and in their private capacities.

The triumph of Phrenology will secure the permanent ascendency of the moral and intellectual powers of man over his animal propensities; and, whenever this consummation shall be reached, mankind will perceive themselves to be members of one family, whose highest interest is to promote each other's happiness and prosperity. We rejoice, therefore, in the efforts of our Parisian friends to diffuse this science. Their position for doing so with effect is excellent, and they will reap the gratitude of Europe as the reward of their labours.

NOTICES.

DR SPURZHEIM. The career of this distinguished leader in Phrenology is closed. The details of his death will be found in our previous pages. As the last sheet of our present Number was going to press, we received Professor Follen's Funeral Oration, delivered at his burial. It is an admirable production, and we shall reprint the greater part of it in our next Number. The account of his death is affecting, and the estimate of his character just. Dr Follen describes Dr Spurzheim such as he really existed, and neither falls short of nor exceeds the truth. We bear this testimony to the merits of the oration with the highest satisfaction, and have formed a very favourable opinion of Professor Follen's own mind and attainments, from the accurate, graphic, and eloquent representation which he has given of our departed friend.

The record of the proceedings of the Boston Medical Association, and of the medical gentlemen of that town in general, shall also be reprinted. Posterity will honour Boston for the conduct of her leading men on this

occasion.

DR VIMONT'S PLATES OF THE SKULLS AND BRAINS OF MEN AND ANIMALS. The publication of these admirable plates goes on with regularity and rapidity. A large number of engravings of skulls and brains of men and the inferior animals are now in the hands of the public, and they will be able to judge of the high merits of the work. Nothing which we have seen equals the accuracy of delineation, power of expression, and beauty of execution, of these plates. We look forward with considerable interest and anxiety to the publication of the letterpress which is to accompany them.

EDINBURGH.-Some very interesting papers have lately been read to the Phrenological Society. We have not room, however, to notice its proceedings. Mr Combe's Lectures continue to be regularly attended by a crowded audience. We beg to hear from our friends in London, &c.

GLASGOW. On the evening of Saturday, 12th January 1833, Dr Hunter, Professor of Anatomy in the Andersonian University, commenced a course of lectures on Phrenology in the Mechanics Institution, North Hanover Street,

to a numerous and most respectable audience. Above 300 persons were present a fact which bespeaks the growing interest in Phrenology felt by the citizens of Glasgow. We have seen a report of his first lecture in the Glasgow Free Press of 16th January, and its effect is to confirm the opinion which we expressed in our 33d Number, that Dr Hunter has an accurate and extensive knowledge of the new philosophy, and is eminently qualified to do it justice in his lectures.

PORTSMOUTH.-A very able and eloquent lecture in defence of Phrenology was delivered to the Hampshire Phrenological Society, at the Old TownHall, by Mr Tichborne, on Thursday 8th November 1832. The meeting was numerously and respectably attended.

We regret to observe that Mr Bilton has resigned as a member of the Phrenological Society at Portsmouth, in consequence of the manner in which his lecture" on the Lights which Phrenology affords towards ameliorating the Condition of Mankind" was received. We are entirely unacquainted with the merits of the essay, but perceive that Mr Bilton states, that it contained essentially the doctrines expounded in our Journal and in the works of Dr Spurzheim and Mr Combe. The objection seems to have been, that he diverged into the field of politics. Our opinion is, that Phrenology, by unfolding the elements of the human mind, brings all the general principles and applications of morals and politics within the range of the science, and we anticipate good from the judicious discussion of these in Phrenological Societies. They ought to be applied, however, only to obtain general conclusions. If directed to political measures, or events of a temporary character, the passions and prejudices both of the essayist and of the hearers might be roused, and philosophy be dropped out of view.

COPENHAGEN. We rejoice to learn that the apostle of Phrenology in Copenhagen, Dr Otto, has been made Professor of Materia Medica and Forensic Medicine or Medical Jurisprudence in the University of that city, and has also been elected a member of the Royal College of Health. His talents are such as would have procured for him equal honours long ago, had he been guiltless of the sin of being a phrenologist! We have no doubt that he will largely infuse the principles of our science into his lectures on medical jurisprudence, in the course of which he must necessarily advert to human responsibility, insanity, and criminal legislation,-subjects which it is impossible to treat in a rational manner without the aid of phrenological principles. As a member of the College of Health, he will be called on to give his vote in many criminal cases; and here also, as well as in the exercise of his duties as physician to the penitentiary, he will find in Phrenology principles at once true and practically useful. In the Medical Journal, of which he is editor, he frequently gives translations of phrenological cases and remarks, contained in our own publication.

GERMANY.-Gall and Phrenology now begin to be mentioned more frequently in Germany. Dr Blumröder of Hertsbruck, in the 6th number of Friedreich's Anthropological Magazine (an excellent Journal, with a very extensive circulation), strongly urged his countrymen to bestow upon Gall's doctrine the attention which it deserves. The same has been done by Dr Lichtenstadt of Petersburgh, (who has written so much on Cholera), in "Medicinisches Conversations Blatt." Froriep's Notizen, a paper which is read everywhere throughout Germany, has given translations of several Phrenological articles from this Journal, and from the Lancet. Gall's great French work, in four volumes, has been translated into German; and we have heard that Dr Andrew Combe's Observations on Insanity will have the same fortune. It is, indeed, high time for Germany to bestir herself in an attempt to wipe off the disgrace of having forced her illustrious sons, Gall and Spurzheim, to seek, in foreign countries, a soil in which their discoveries might take root and flourish! These eminent philosophers have inflicted a severe but merited penalty on their countrymen for their treatment of Phrenology -they have died without publishing one word of their doctrines in their native language. The Germans must borrow, by translation from foreigners, the instruction which they heartlessly rejected when proferred to themselves.

THE

PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL.

No. XXXVI.

ARTICLE I.

ACCOUNT OF THE ILLNESS, DEATH, AND POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION OF DR SPURZHEIM; AND SUBSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS AT BOSTON.

DURING his short residence here, Dr Spurzheim has excited a great interest among us. He has commanded the attention of many of our most intelligent fellow-citizens in his lecture-room, and he rendered himself very agreeable to those who had the pleasure of his private acquaintance. The interest thus excited has been augmented by his sickness and death. There has been a very natural desire among the most respectable members of our community, to become acquainted with the nature of his disease, and the circumstances attending it. The inquiries on these points have been too numerous to be answered in full by personal intercourse with those about him. I, therefore, submit whether it may not be allowed to publish the following statement. It is proper to make such a publication in some mode, independently of the claims above referred to; for his numerous friends in Europe will claim to know the particulars of his last days.

I was called to see Dr Spurzheim on the 30th of October, in consultation with Dr Grigg. I found him affected with a continued fever, of a kind not uncommon here after the middle of autumn. The disease had not had a well marked beginning; it had crept on gradually and insidiously; but it appeared

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that it had existed more than a fortnight. He had continued his lectures until within a week of the time I was called to him. On the 23d he had lectured at Cambridge, and on the 22d and 24th in this city. In the week preceding these days, it was evident that he was not well, and I had remarked the effect of this in his lecture-room. On the days above mentioned, he was so obviously sick as to have excited the sympathy of many of his audience, both here and at Cambridge. On the 25th he kept his room, and did not go out afterwards. He consulted Dr Grigg, with whom he had formed an intimate acquaintance and friendship, and that gentleman attended him most faithfully, giving up his own business at last, that he might not be interrupted in his care of this celebrated man.

On the 30th of October I found Dr Spurzheim in his bed. His tongue was perfectly dry, except a line on each side, and dark, but not thickly coated; he had much thirst, but no appetite. He stated to me that his bowels were and had been freely open, though I found that they had not been kept so without artificial aid. His pulse was 96, firm, and with the hardness of age rather than of disease, though he was only fiftyfive years old; his pulse intermitted frequently, but he stated that this had been the case for three years past, unaccompanied by any other symptom of diseased heart; his respiration was natural, or as much so as that of any person so much diseased. He could expand his chest fully and freely: he struck it and it resounded well, and he declared that he had no symptom of disease referable to that cavity. His skin was dry and rather hot, but not much so. He declared himself free from pain, but he had uncomfortable feelings about the head; and he had occasional uneasiness in the bowels, which he was always able to remove at will by a lavement. There was nothing morbid in his evacuations. His most distressing symptoms were an extreme restlessness, with an appearance of impatience, and very great watchfulness. He had an idea that his disease partook of the character of cholera, or that there was in him a disposition to this disease, an irritable state of the alimentary canal. But he denied that he had any nausea, and Dr Grigg informed me that he had not exhibited any of the symptoms of cholera.

From the 30th of October to the 5th of November, he continued to manifest the same symptoms, without material alterations, gradually getting worse, but not in a marked degree, from day to day. On one day, (31st), his skin was very moist, but without corresponding amendment generally. He had the

usual exacerbations at evening, and these did not abate till two, three, or four o'clock in the morning. He had some good sleep, but, I believe, never more than three hours in a night. He manifested at times great impatience, and an irritable temper,

which he had not evinced in health. This state of mind passed almost insensibly into delirium, particularly in the night.

When I visited him on the 5th of November he was manifestly worse. His countenance was altered; his pulse was accelerated, though it retained its firmness in a good degree. The tongue had been perfectly dry from the first day on which I saw him, now it had diminished in volume, as if its whole substance were dried; his respiration was somewhat irregular; he had frequent twitchings of the muscles, which had existed in a less degree for two or three days, accompanied by a pricking of the bed-clothes; and his delirium was increased.

He

On the 6th the bad symptoms had become much worse. was disposed to coma, with intervals of delirium. His respiration was more hurried and irregular, with some rattle in the throat; and his pulse was now 120, more feeble and unequal in force.

From this time his symptoms continued to be of a bad character until his death, which occurred on the 10th of November, a little before midnight. From the 6th to the 10th, he had some variations. On the 8th, he often started as if from some sudden pain or spasm. He generally placed his hand on some part of the chest, but sometimes on the abdomen. He said he had a spasm in his lungs at these times; but his mind was not in a state to represent any thing accurately. In the night of the 8th he suffered very much in this way, and the medical gentlemen who watched with him believed that they discovered a tenderness, on pressure, over the left side of the abdomen. But this was not found to exist the next day, and during his whole sickness there was never hardness, fulness, or tension in the abdomen. I called his attention to this region daily, when he was capable of stating his feelings, and he uniformly denied the existence of pain or of tenderness there, and usually doubled over the relaxed parietes with his hand to evince to me the absence of this symptom. I presume, therefore, that the tenderness discovered on the night of the 8th, must have been the consequence of some spasmodic affection in the abdominal muscles.

From the 6th his respiration was seldom natural for any length of time. It was sometimes almost stertorous. The dif ficulty seemed to be owing to diminished nervous power. It was certainly very different from the dyspnoea of bronchitis or of pneumonitis. By auscultation it was found that the respiratory murmur was deficient, but there was heard a coarse mucous rale, similar to that heard in the trachea. In some short and quick respirations, however, the natural murmur was heard. Percussion always elicited a clear sound, but less clear on these last days than before.