very moderate compass, comprises an amount of information to such, which could not be otherwise acquired, except by the study of a multitude of volumes. The profession will find it an invaluable manual for reference. We recommend the work especially to the multitude of apothecaries in the cities as well as the country, who have either been deficient in opportunities for thorough training, or are ambitious to excel in their pharmaceutical manipulations. The author of this book, we venture to prejudge, without other evidence, is a working man, who has never acquired his knowledge by absorption; and he has here demonstrated that he has not labored in vain.

Druggist's Receipt Book, by Henry Beasley.-Lindsay & Blakiston. Philadelphia, 1850.

This is a useful work, and contains information upon Veterinary Practice, the Materia Medica for the inferior tribes of animals, with patent and proprietary medicines, perfumery, a multitude of formulæ, &c., all valuable to druggists as a book of reference as well as study.

crime and recklessness of human life, covered up in this item, and involving a horrible, increasing, and unparalleled amount of guilt somewhere, he speaks in terms of just and indignant remonstrance, to which we shall take occasion to refer hereafter. So also the subject of infant mortality as exhibited in this report, will receive the attention it merits in a future number of this paper.

For the present we must content ourselves with a general commendation of this document as creditable to the department.

The London Lancet, May, 1850.-This valuable republication continues to retain and increase its high reputation, and we are happy to be assured that it is justly appreciated in America, as evinced by the widely extended patronage it is receiving, so that the enterprising publishers are remunerated for their outlay, in providing the profession with the cheapest and best publication on medical science, as the Lancet is now very generally regarded. The consecutive courses of lectures on the various departments, which this periodical contains in every monthly issue, are intrinsically worth more than the price of the volume, coming as they do from the ablest men in Europe; and treating on practical sub

Dr. F. G. Smith.

This monthly journal has for several years commended itself to the profession at home and abroad, by the ability with which it has been conducted, and the practical character of its contents. The May No. has an invaluable paper by Prof. Mutter, upon Hydrocele of the neck, in which that eminent surgeon reports cases, and comments on the various methods of treatment and their comparative merits. The bibliographical notices are able, discriminating, and impartial. This periodical is published by Lindsay & Blakiston, Philadelphia; who are also the American publishers of Ranking's Half-Yearly Abstract, a work of growing reputation, and furnished at a cheap rate. It is a kindred work to Braithwaite's Retrospect, and like this deserves a place in every medical library.

Carnochan on Congenital Dislocations of the Femur, with plates.-S. S. & W. Wood. New-York, 1850.

This is an important publication on a highly interesting subject, in relation to which but little information can be found in any of our standard works on surgery. This novel topic is elaborately treated in all its aspects, and the engraved illustrations are graphic and really beautiful. We have only rocm to announce this book at present, to be noticed hereafter as it deserves. The style in which the publishers have brought it out is unsurpassed, and they merit high commendation for this specimen of bookmaking.

lantic brethren know how to render popular and profitable. No medical library should be without the whole series of the Lancet, which may be had of Stringer & Townsend, the publishers, and their numerous agents. See advertisement. Dietetical and Medical Hydrology.-A Treatise on Baths; including cold, sea, warm, hot, vapor, gas, and mud baths; also on the watery regimen, Hydropathy, and Pulmonary inhalation, with a description of bathing in ancient and modern times. By John Bell, M. D. Philadelphia, Barrington & Haswell. 1850.

We are indebted to the publishers for a copy of this excellent work, but it reached our table too late for such notice as it deserves. It is one of the very few original works, upon a practical and important subject, which has been furnished through the American press; our medical brethren in general being, to too great an extent; content with being mere compilers, and our late medical books too frequently presenting onlyia reproduction of other men's thoughts. Dr. Bell, however, has always been an exception, and is well known to do his own thinking on every subject, instead of performing his work by proxy. We honor him for this characteristic, in proportion to its rarity; and, as the author of this book, he has merited new laurels, for the complete and thorough instruction he has furnished upon a department of Hygeine, hitherto unexplored, and unenlightened by scientific investigation, in a degree at all commensurate with its importance. His systematic treatise upon Hydropathy, though constituting only a brief inter

The visitation of epidemic cholera, during the last year, has given an appalling increase of the deaths occurring in 1849, the aggregate being 23,773, which is more than 5 per cent. of the population, estimating the latter at 450,000, which is not far from the truth.

The average mortality of the city for the last ten years, prior to 1849, was not more than 25 per cent.; so that it has more than doubled during the past year. That the increase is mainly to be ascribed to the direct and indirect effects of the epidemic is scarcely susceptible of doubt. For, although only 5,071 of the deaths are set down as cholera cases, yet several thousand more were the undoubted victims of the epidemic atmosphere equally with these, although reported among the interments as diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera infantum, and cholera morbus! by those who falsely claimed to cure the cholera, and thus concealed the cases they lost, under other names.

More than half of the entire mortality of the city, viz. 12,028 are included in the report as the results of the "diseases of infancy, and the accidents of childbirth." The number of still-born, and premature births for the year is 1168 of the former, and 152 of the latter, making the terrible aggregate of 1320! Upon the

which is a duodecimo of 658 pages, since it exhibits the true merits of that system with candor and truth. We heartily commend the work as worthy of the patronage of the profession and the public.

A short Lecture on Health.

It has been quaintly said, "that there is this difference between health and money: money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; while health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied;-and their comparative value is seen in the fact that the poorest man would not part with Health for money;-while the richest would gladly part with money for health." Still it must be acknowledged that the possession of health is seldom estimated at its true value, until it is seriously impaired, if not utterly lost. Then, and not till then, do we too often discover what a blessing is health, because we then learn that without it neither riches, honor, nor pleasure, avail us any thing; nor can either afford us happiness in the absence of health.

A multitude of definitions have been given of health, but the ancient one, mens sana, in corpore sanoa sound mind, in a sound body-is still unsurpassed in its simplicity and comprehensiveness. Its possession is a subject of consciousness, and most persons who escape the perils of childhood have at some time or other felt that they were in health, if we except those who are the victims of hereditary maladies, many of whom never know health at any period of life. Nevertheless, a life of uninterrupted health is so exceedingly rare, that an individual is scarcely to be found who has not experienced a loss of health, and been at some time the victim of disease; whence we are prone to imagine that the perpetuation of health is not attainable, instead of candidly conceding in our own case and that of others, that we might have retained health if we had not violated its laws. These laws of health and life are as verily the laws of God, as are any of those written in the decalogue; and as invariably, their violation subjects us to their penalty; and this, whether our transgression be voluntary, or constrained by the circumstances in which we have allowed ourselves to be placed.

The first law, or condition of health is temperance, and this in its broadest signification, as opposed to every species of excess, which last is by far the most frequent cause of disease. This absolute condition of health is violated by any and every excess, whether in eating, drinking, or sleeping;—labor, or rest, confinement or exposure, cold or heat, exertion or indolence of body or mind, indulgence or undue restraint of the passions or emotions of the mind, too much or too little clothing, and so of any other species of intemperance, whether affecting our physical, mental, or moral being. The first, and generally the only cause of disease, as developed in an individual previously in health, will be found to belong to this category; some excess has been committed or suffered, some departure from the law of temperance. For a state of entire health, in which all the vital organs retain their integrity, and the several functions of the body are performed with due regularity, is inconsistent with that susceptibility or predisposition, which is universally known to be a "condition precedent" to ordinary epidemics, dependent on morbid states of the atmosphere. Even the poison of conta gious and infectious maladies may be successfully resisted by persons whose health is unimpaired, for none but the predisposed will ordinarily contract such dis

eases.

Hence it is that healthy persons seldom suffer by any epidemic, until by fatigue, watching, grief or some other excess, they become liable, by violating temperance, the first and chief condition or law of health.

What person enjoying good health, ever becomes sick, without being able correctly to ascribe the disease to some excess in which he has been overtaken, or has carelessly indulged? There may have been and often is no demerit, but even the contrary, in the excess committed; there may have been benevolence or piety

in the exposure to atmospheric vicissitudes, or the fatiguing toils by which health may have been sacrificed, and positive duty may have prompted the work of necessity or mercy which has incurred the penalty of a violation of the laws of health; but the fact is no less in proof, that the excess is the source of the mischief.

The second condition or law of human health, is an adequate supply of pure air, the lack of which is now well understood to be the prolific parent of a multitude of diseases, and which are rendered fatal, in defiance of remedies, while the patients are deprived of that element in which we "live and move and have our being." It was a remark of Dr. Paley, that "no one adequately realizes what a blessing it is to breath freely, but one who is suffering a paroxysm of asthma." But even an asthmatic patient knows nothing of the severity of suffering to which multitudes of the poor are doomed in the crowded apartments and confined air of their habitations; in many of which men, women, and children are compelled to cook, eat, and sleep in a single room, into which the free air of heaven is scarcely allowed to enter; and which is moreover filled with the exhalations from the lungs and skin of the inmates, until none of air. Instead of marvelling at the ratio of mortality, them can know the luxury of a single breath of pure under such circumstances, especially in women and children, for whom pure air is more necessary than food, it is wonderful that any survive such cruel inflictions. That philanthropy which should rescue the thousands who are perennially suffocated in the abodes of squalid poverty in our city, by providing them with humble homes in which they could enjoy the blessing of pure air, by the free ventilation of their lodging rooms, would merit a "mortal immortality." For the terrible sacrifice of human life, by ship fever, hospital fever, jail fever, &c. all of which are the results of the privation of air; though appalling to humanity to contemplate, consigns to a miserable death not a tithe of the hecatomb of victims who perish in their wretched homes by being crowded into filthy and unventilated rooms, in violation of the laws of life, by the necessities of their birth, amid the woes of poverty and destitution.

The fourth law of health demands a competent supply of wholesome food. And the privations of multitudes in the quantity, but especially the deteriorated and even. poisonous quality of much of the provisions attainable by the poor, even in our country of plenty, must be regarded as another source of disease and death. To indicate the examples and proofs of this single blight upon our population, must be deferred to a future article, and it must suffice here to allude to it without illustration.

The fifth law of health is temperature, the preservation and perpetuation of the natural heat of the body, by clothing and fuel adapted to the vicissitudes of the climate. The poor suffer untold mishiefs, including loss of health and life, by their unavoidable subjection to cold in the winters of our northern latitudes. And the rich,

A. B. & D. SANDS,

WHOLESALE DRUGGISTS,

No. 141 WILLIAM STREET, CORNER OF FULTON, NEW-YORK, Offer for sale for Cash, or an approved Credit, at the Lowest Market Prices, a large and well-selected assortment of East India, Mediterranean, and European DRUGS AND MEDICINES, French, Euglish and American Chemicals of all kinds.

LOW'S Genuine Brown WINDSOR and HONEY SOAPS, Perfumery, Fancy Articles, Fancy Soaps, Brushes, Extracts, Bronzes, Trusses, Leeches, Paints and Oils, Dye Stuffs, Druggists' Labels, Window Glass, Surgical Instruments, Druggists' Glass Ware, Hatters' Goods, Shakers' Herbs and Roots,

To produce sleep and composure;

To relieve pain and irritation, nervous excitement and morbid irritability of body and mind;

To allay convulsive and spasmodic action, &c. &c.

And being purified from all the noxious and deleterious elements, its opera tion is attended by

No sickness of the stomach, no comiting, no headach,

Nor any derangement of the constitution or general health. Hence its high superiority over Laudanum, Paregoric, Black Drop, Denarcotized Laudanum, and every other Opiate preparation,

The Elixir of Opium is also greatly superior to Morphine.

1. In its containing all the active medicinal virtues of Opium in native combination, and in its being its full representative, while Morphine, being only one of its principles, cannot alone, and that in an artificial state of combination too, produce all the characteristic effects of so triumphant a remedy, when four or five of its other valuable principles are excluded.

2. In its effects, the Elixir is more characteristic, permanent and uniform than any of the artificial compounds of Morphine.

3. And as a Preparation, it is not liable to decompose or deteriorate like the Solutions of Morphine; and thus is obviated a serious objection, which has prevented the latter from being used with precision and effect.

To speak summarily, the Elixir of Opium, as a remedy, may he adopted in all cases in which Opium or its preparations are administered, with the certainty of obtaining all their salutary and happy effects, without being followed by their distressing and pernicious consequences.

The following testimonial, recently received, embraces several interesting and very important facts connected with the administration of the Elixir of Opium; and it is believed the views expressed by Dr. Webb will accord with the experience of every Physician who may adopt the use of this truly valuable remedial agent in his practice:

Messrs. A. B. & D. SANDS,

Hempstead, L.I., July 7, 1846. GENTLEMEN,-I regret that urgent and unavoidable engagements have prevented me from answering yours before, requesting my opinion of McMUNN'S ELIXIR OF OPIUM. or any facts with respect to its operation in my practice. I have frequently witnessed its effects in cases which resisted every other remedy; and I might cite a number of instances in which it seemed to act like a charm in allaying the most dangerous symptoms when other means had been tried in vain. I have been in the habit of using it more or less in my practice, ever since it was first presented to public use, and I know of no substitute for it in all those cases in which it is desirable to allay nervous irritability, either as an anodyne or soporific, without producing all the unpleasant cousequences incident to the narcotic property of Opium. A case occurred recently, in which the use of Morphine was followed by a state resembling catalepsy. The patient remained insensible for five hours after taking a moderate dose, with a complete suspension of sensorial power or volition, without my discovering the causes; but as the effects of the Morphine subsided, the pains for which it was given returned with such severity that the dose was repeated. and the same results followed. I substituted the Elixir, and she was perfectly free from all unpleasant results afterwards, and completely relieved.

Another case, in which every other form of Opium had been tried before I was called, was relieved by MCMUNN'S ELIXIR. The patient was a lady, who had been vomiting incessantly for two or three days. She cautioned me not to prescribe any preparation of Opium, insisting that it would make her worse. I ventured, however, to try it without her knowledge, and she was at once relieved, falling into a delightful slumber, without feeling any other than than the desired effect, so that as an anti-emetic it is invaluuable. I might add a variety of other cases, but the opinions expressed in the testimonials you have already adduced are sufficient to convince the most sceptical that, when judiciously administered, it is superior to all other articles in use for particular conditions. Very respectfully yours, EDWIN WEBB, M. D. NOTICE-A. B. & D. SANDS having purchased of Dr. McMusN all his right, title and interest in this article, and having been the sole Proprietors since the year 1841, and by whom it has been prepared during that period, respectfuily inform dealers and consumers that no Elixir of Opium will hereafter he genuine unless having their signature on the outside wrapper. and all orders from the "Trade" must be addressed, as heretofore, to A. B. & D. Sands, Wholesale Druggists, 141 William-street, corner of Fulton, New-York. Sold also by Druggists generally.

MEDICAL BOOK STORE,

No. 261 PEARL STREET,

(Two Doors below Fulton-street.)

SAMUEL S. & WILLIAM WOOD

Have a large assortment of Books in the several departments of Literature; and, having for many years devoted special attention to the Medical Branch of their business, they have accumulated a stock of greater variety, as they believe, than can be found elsewhere in the country. They are constantly adding works, both new and old, by importations from London and Paris as well as from the American Press.

PROFESSORS OF MEDICAL COLLEGES will find in this Collection Works richly illustrated with plates, plain and colored, on GENERAL, COMPARATIVE and PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY, OBSTETRICS, OPERATIVE SURGERY, VENEREAL DISEASES, MEDICAL BOTANY, DISEASES OF SKIN, EYE, UTERUS, &c. Catalogues of the entire stock may be had on application at the Store. In press,

A Practical Treatise on Functional and Organic Diseases of Females,

CLARKE's valuable "Observations on those Diseases of Females which Particularly of the UTERUS and its Appendages; including Sir C. M.

are attended by Discharges;" with Commentaries by SAMUEL S. PURPLE, M. D., Physician to the New-York Dispensary, Editor of the New-York Journal of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences, &c. &c.

This work will be illustrated with colored plates drawn from nature and numerous wood engravings; and in it will be recorded, with careful and ample justice, the Practice and Experience of our own Physicians, as contained in American Medical Literature.

THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN

MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL REVIEW

AND JOURNAL OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE,
Published Quarterly at $3 per Aunum,

BY RICHARD AND GEORGE S. WOOD,

No. 261 PEARL-STREET, NEW-YORK.

THE MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL REVIEW had for many years a repu tation unequalled by any other journal, as the Medical Journal of Europe, and a Standard Work in Medical Literature. Being republished in this country for more than twenty-five years, it was universally known to the Medical Profession here, and was pronounced by some of the most eminent "the best medical journal extant." The British and Foreign Medical Review, though not so long established, was nearly as well known, and was conducted with such spirit as fully to entitle it to rank with its illustrious contemporary. These two works are now united, (under the above title,) and will be sustained by the united contributions of the writers whose talents have given such eminence to each. Of the merits of the work produced by this combination. nothing need be said.

NEW MAGNETO-ELECTRO MACHINES,

FOR MEDICAL APPLICATION.

These Instruments possess a great superiority over all others for medical use, the shocks being obtained entirely from permanent magnets, and the mechanism is so arranged as to cause the current of induced electricity to pass always in one direction. They require no galvanic battery to put them in action, and consequently, there is no need of acids or other liquids, so objectionable in the other kinds now in use, and they are always ready for immediate application, and are in no ways liable to get out of order. All that is necessary to put the instrument in action is simply to turn a small handle, which could be done by a child.

They are put up in a very portable form, being secured in small mahogany boxes, from which they do not require to be removed. For sale at Dr. CHILTON'S Chemical Warehouse,

No. 83 Chambers-street, New-York.

The NEW-YORK MEDICAL GAZETTE AND JOURNAL OF HEALTH is published every Saturday, by S. S. & W. WOOD, 261 Pearl-street, New-York. Edited by D. M. REESE, M. D., LL. D., 775 Broadway. Subscription, two dollars per annum, payable in advance, or before the 4th number, after which Three Dollars will be required for the year. Professional Advertisements will be inserted at the following rates, viz.: For a column, changed at pleasure $100 per annum,

if left standing Not more than 12 lines, changed at pleasure if left standing Single insertion of a column

66

Subscriptions and Advertisements must be sent to the Editor free of

postage.