services of lecturers of the first rank in the scientific world: thus reacting, by inducing the subscription of large numbers of respectable adults, whose quarterly payments would be well rewarded by attendance at the lectures and the library.

The office of President has been filled, during the past year, by Sir E. Eardley Wilmot, Bart., M. P., who has distinguished himself by his liberality, both in a pecuniary point of view, and in the sentiments he has ever expressed in reference to the Institution: and we have great pleasure in announcing that the Presidency for the ensuing year is accepted by Chandos Leigh, Esq., of Stoneleigh Abbey, whose enlightened views are well known, and point him out as peculiarly eligible for the office he has consented to fill.

During the last quarter, the following interesting lectures have been delivered, and, in the majority of cases, gratuitously:-Mr. Young two lectures on Astronomy, the conclusion of a course ; Rev. Edward Madeley on the Manners of the Ancient Romans, and on Pneumatics; Mr. Hawkes Smith on Improved Cultivation-its social and moral tendency; Mr. James Russell on Respiration, including a narrative of the discovery of a Toad in a bed of Sandstone, during the excavation for the Birmingham and London Railway, near Coventry; Mr. Watts on Physiology, being the commencement of a course on the physical and intellectual powers of man; Mr. Edward Taylor two lectures on the Music of the age of Elizabeth, illustrated by a select number of performers, led by Mr. Munden on the piano-forte.

Such are the objects which have latterly occupied the attention of the members. During the quarter which is now commencing, the course so liberally afforded and so carefully prepared by Mr. Watts, will be proceeded with; and a series on the Physiology of Plants will be delivered by Mr. John Murray, of London, F. S. A., F. G. S., &c.

We give this list of subjects to shew that the committee take an enlarged view of the objects of the Institution. They avail themselves, to the extent of their means and influence, of the information to be gained by lectures on various subjects, generally interesting to the presumed auditory, as members of the great family of mankind, and not as individuals belonging to a class. We make this observation because many persons-not ill-informed or unreflective-in conversation, express themselves slightly, or half compassionately, on hearing that lectures, other than elementary, are delivered to a body of "mechanics;" and because we find that public functionaries and statistical inquirers, on sending into the country strings of queries relative to the conduct of Mechanics' Institutions, still perpetually fall into the same error-the error of imagining that the information offered must necessarily relate to the occupation of persons belonging to the "working class." Now, we conceive this elementary knowledge, that is, elementary knowledge on the simple practical sciences-for that is what is meant-can scarcely be communicated in lectures. For such elementary instruction, the schools are

opened. The lectures are valuable chiefly as tending to invigorate and excite the minds of the hearers, by presenting some new and unwonted information, such as may awaken attention, and animate the faculties to energetic operation. We do trust that the great problem-the equalization of the advantages of intellectual culture -approaches nearer and nearer to its solution. Let, then, bodies of "mechanics" listen to lectures on the mysteries of physical science on the graces and glories of ancient art-on the venerable remains illustrative of ancient manners-and on the progress and pleasures of those elegantly recreative sciences, whose exercise is said, by the poet, to

"soothe the savage breast."

Every lecture on such humane subjects, we hope and believe, brings us nearer the desired solution. The approach of the consummation may be slow, but it does approach, and the end will shew that no effort is lost.

LIVERPOOL MEDICAL SOCIETY.

SESSION 1835-6.

THE first meeting of this useful association, organized since January, 1833, and which already consists of upwards of seventy resident members, was held on the evening of Wednesday, the 7th of October, 1835, in the Royal Institution, when the following members were elected as officers by ballot:-Presidents, Dr. Carson, Dr. Baird, Mr. Worthington, and Dr. Banning; Treasurer, Mr. Batty; Secretary, Dr. Thorburn.

October 21.-Dr. Carson, jun. stated, to the Society, the case of a Dutch sailor, who had been exposed, in Holland, during the hot season, to exhalations from the marshes, and was affected with a cutaneous eruption of a most peculiar kind, somewhat resembling rupia or psoriasis. The most remarkable features in this case, were the loss of sensibility in the extremities of the fingers, and the scars or cicatrices (many of them a hand's breadth) which were placed in contact with a heated poker, and burnt, without the patient being conscious of the application at the time.

Mr. Bonner, the originator of the Society, called the attention of the meeting to two cases of severe injury, (one of a child who sustained a compound fracture of the outer ankle bone), the circumstances attending which, in connexion with the results of the treatment, were illustrative of how much Nature will do when youth is on the side of good surgery.

Two cases of intense squinting were communicated by Mr. Neill, and the particulars of a case of scarlet fever by Dr. Duncan.

A case of intermittent fever, characterized by some singular features, was described by Dr. Carson, jun., who designated this unusual and well-authenticated form of ague, which had yielded permanently to the exhibition of quinine, as a case of "tertiana duplex duplicata."

November 18.-Dr. Carson, sen., took the chair, when a communication, to prove "That the doctrine, maintained by Mr. Brodie, of ulceration of the cartilages being a frequent consequence of inflammation of the synovial membranes, is incorrect," was read by Dr. Murphy, and was canvassed by several members. Dr. Vose, and others, charged Dr. Murphy with having misrepresented Sir Benjamin Brodie's views. The essayist defended himself from this charge by simply referring to page 13 of the third edition of Mr. Brodie's work.

December 2.-An interesting case was narrated by Dr. Baird, from the chair, on which an animated discussion arose, with practical remarks by Drs. Vose, Duncan, Anderson, Carson, Edwards, and Thorburn.

LIVERPOOL

LITERARY, SCIENTIFIC, AND COMMERCIAL INSTITUTION.

Ar the request of the committee of this flourishing Institution, (of which see our introductory notice in The Analyst for October), Dr. Thorburn re-delivered the first of a course of lectures on the ob jects, advantages, and pleasures, derivable from a knowledge of Botany, with its applications to the arts, sciences, and purposes of life. The lecture was delivered in the spacious lecture-room of the Royal Institution, and, in addition to the subscribers to the St. AnneStreet Institution, there were present a numerous and highly-respectable assembly of visitors, clergy, and members of the Royal Institution.

Having made some prefatory observations, Dr. Thorburn adverted to the difficulty of determining what should form "the fittest subject-matter for a lecture introductory;" the partial, if not erroneous, views acted upon by many instructors; and having stated his reasons for preferring to describe, rather than prematurely to define, the ideas, scope, and relations, of the term "botany," he illustrated how extremely limited were the ideas commonly entertained, and which were not confined to the public, as to the intrinsic nature and bearing of the science, whose philosophical relations are boundless.

The proper period for submitting a disquisition upon, or entering on a summary history of, the rise, progress, and prospects of botany, was said to be at the close, not at the outset, of a course of lectures, which, if elementary, should, in the opinion of the lecturer, be so conducted as if the audience were addressed upon the subjects, or

bearings, of the science for the first time. Pythagoras's volumes published after his return from Egypt, whither he had travelled in search of science, were 'noticed in connexion with the estimate of the state of botany in ancient Egypt prior to the age of Aristotle. The parallel between the views entertained by the favourite pupil of the Stagyrite, Theophrastes, surnamed, on account of his eloquence, "the divine speaker," and one of the ablest of modern vegetable physiologists, was interesting as illustrating the reach of philosophy, and the profundity which characterized the conceptions of a practical sage, who propounded them, upwards of two thousand years before the birth of Christ, to the intellectual chiefs of the Greeks.

The causes influencing the decline of the science, during the Roman government, were alluded to, and the merits of the unjustlyreviled Arabians warmly acknowledged, as the nation by whose efforts the expiring embers of philosophical botany were kept alive till after the dark ages, when it was again cultivated in the north of Europe. With regard to medicine, philosophy, mathematics, and literature, the Arabians were characterized as having proved "even as a Noah's ark of preservation, when each and every department of general science, throughout a dreary night of centuries, was deluged in the sleep of the dark ages.”

Dr. Thorburn proceeded to show what were the objects of scientific botany and that the being able to name any number of plants could not be said, properly, to constitute a knowledge of botany: and, that one might have no ordinary pretensions to be considered as a botanist, though unable, in a drawing-room or parterre, or upon turning over the leaves of a hortus siccus, to name more than a few specimens of vegetable nature.

the well-directed sight

Brings, in each flower, a universe to light !"

From the objects, the lecturer proceeded to illustrate the applications of botany to the arts, sciences, and purposes of civilized life. By the French and Germans, applied botany is chiefly studied; and the lead was taken and is kept by these nations in almost every application of the science, as regards geology, agriculture, &c. The art of transplanting large trees, so as to enhance the value of property, and to communicate the appearance of an old family manorhouse, to newly-erected country seats," constituted one of the most prominent illustrations adduced at this part of the lecture. The instance of the transplantation, by one of the governors of Brazil -Count Maurice of Nassau-of an extensive grove of cocoa-nut trees, was mentioned; also, the similar, and occasionally successful, attempts of the luxurious senators of Rome, of Louis the XIV. of France, and of one of King Charles the Second's courtiers.

The benefits derivable from sound theory in the arts, were next considered, with the value of theoretical knowledge in economizing time, &c. &c. Lastly, after a series of practical illustrations of the

recent applications of botany in forwarding the progress of agriculture and commerce, the lecturer concluded with an exposition of the successful enterprise of the distinguised continental engineer, M. Bremontier, in reclaiming, from utter barrenness, dunes, or shifting sand-hills, along the sea-coast, by planting vegetables having peculiar roots, and afterwards sowing broom, mixed with the seeds of the sea-pine, &c. Every few years, such reclaimed wildernesses now actually yield a profitable harvest to the cultivators of these previously sterile tracts, by supplying the materials for an extensive manufacture of tar and resin to meet the various demands for purposes of general commerce, navigation, and agriculture. This successful enterprise of Bremontier's has been justly characterized as the most splendid agricultural undertaking of any age.

WORCESTER LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION.

LECTURE ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF MAN AND THE INFERIOR ANIMALS, BY E. A. TURLEY, ESQ.

THIS gentleman delivered last year, in the Athenæum, a course of four lectures, shewing the effect produced on society by the propensities of attachment, combativeness, destructiveness, and secretiveness. The present lecture is a continuation of that course.

After some very apposite proemial observations, the lecturer said that, being moved by daily witnessing the distress and misery occasioned by neglect of the first principles of health, he meant to devote three lectures in the ensuing year to the moral and physical education of the body. He had, in his former lectures, endeavoured to shew that a nerve, or analogous structure, formed the link which united together animate and inanimate bodies, figuratively, termed the two great kingdoms of the earth. Bone is chiefly lime; blood chiefly water, with salts, carbon, and other admixtures; muscles are but carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen: yet these, when united in one organized body, endowed with a nervous system, and put in action, become a living animal, gifted with sensations, instinct, mind, and capabilities, proportioned to its organization. As living creatures differ in their kind and in their instincts, so does a knowledge of their nervous system exhibit the laws regulating their instincts or different economies; and it is found that those animals which are formed with a more elaborate nervous system are, also, endowed with more complicated instincts, and exhibit, in their action, more evidence of their approach to reason. Mr. Turley had, also, in his former lectures, explained that the simplest nervous system consists of a few globules of whitish matter, endowed with sensation and motion; which globules are sometimes formed into a roundish knot, termed a ganglion. These ganglia are placed in different parts of