than the expreffion, he enters on the Arabian Phyficians, beginning with Aaron of Alexandria, who wrote about A. D. 620, and ending with Mefue of Damafcus, who lived in the latter end of the twelfth century. In the course of this detail, our Author gives us a few curious fpecimens of his own Arabian erudition, in the Arabic letters, explained by English letters and words; from which we are become fufficiently learned ourselves to inform our Readers, that Irk is Arabic for a Nerve; Nocra & Almadid, both fignify a Vein; Iódari, the Small-pox; Chaftah, the Meafles; Al-raib is Butter-milk; and Al-kawabeli is equivalent to a Man-midwife. These may be confidered as ornaments at least to our Hiftorian: and here, after fome general defcant on Arabian Medicine, in which he justly compliments them for their cool regimen in the Small-pox, and for their introducing the milder cooling Cathartics into practice, our Hiftoriographer paffes into Europe; and beginning with the fchool of Salernum, in 802, he comes down, after fome extracts from Dr. Friend's Hiftory, to the fifteenth century, and concludes this Section, of near 140 pages, with fome account of Doctors Linacre and Caius in this ifland, and of Vefalius and Euftachius on the conti

nent.

The third Section--On the Improvement of Medical Knowlege after the restoration of Learning-commences with the great Lord Bacon, whofe juft rejection of the philofophy of Ariftotle, which was the foundation of Galen's theory; and whofe inftitution of experimental enquiries may be confidered as the firm bafis of, and a most valuable advancement to, real knowlege. From our immortal Harvey, whose fame muft circulate as long as the human blood, Dr. Hillary paffes to Sanctorius, whofe ftatical discoveries have greatly conduced to a juft reasoning and falutary practice in Physic. It was natural after this difcovery for Phyficians, in climates different from that of Italy, to inveftigate the various proportions of the feveral animal excretions in their own; the refult of which our Author fummarily relates. The exquifite injections of Ruyfh, Morgagni, and Albinus, are mentioned; and fubfequent to thefe we have a lift of feveral eminent chemifts, from Roger Bacon down to Stahl and Boerhaave. This is followed by no improper ftricture on the ignorance, the vanity, and knavery, of fome enthufiaftic Alchemists, particularly on thofe of the illiterate Paracelfus, who affirmed,

Philofophy could be taught in no language, but HighDutch, and boafted of a Noftrum that would extend a man's

life to the age of Methufalem, though he died himself at the age of 47." Some well-meant ftrictures on the most popular Noftrums naturally fall in here, though we think our Author fcarcely attentive enough to facts, in regard to a celebrated Fever-powder, which, we are of opinion, notwithstanding our ocular conviction of its proving fometimes ineffectual, has, upon the whole, done more good, and much lefs mifchief, than most of the others put together; notwithstanding our Author's preferring small doses of the antimonial wine to it. His reafoning, however, in the main, against the abfurd practice of attempting to precipitate the natural critical term of any acute disease, suppose the Small-pox or Meafles, is certainly just; as these, and probably many other Fevers, have their natural and appropriate terms of growth and maturity, as regularly as moft vegetable productions: and a premature extinn of that febrile procefs, which is fo frequently an 'inftrument of health under the conduct of nature, and of her judicious obfervers and affiftants, might prove as often fatal, as the prevalence of the morbid caufe over the united efforts 'of nature and art.

4

After fome notice of the earlier Writers on the Venereal disease, Dr. Hillary introduces the Scurvy, as one that has never been mentioned by the Greek, Roman, or Arabian Physicians; for which reafon, he fays, it has generally been esteemed a new disease. He derives our English name for it from the German word Scharboock, which, he fays, fignifies an Inflammation; nor does he limit it to any part. Eugalenus calls it, in Low-Dutch, Schoorbuyck, which he fupposes to refer particularly to the violent pains of the ftomach and bowels, and the exulcerations attending them. But Boerhaave, who calls it Scoorbeek, judges it more probably to refer to the foreness of the mouth and gums, which is frequently a pathognomonic fymptom of it; and which will answer to fore mouth or Beck, a word still used in the northern parts of this kingdom for the human mouth, in a humorous. way indeed, as being fynonymous to the bill or beck of birds. We were furprized that a gentleman of Dr. Hillary's reading did not recur on this head to the Stomacace, or fore mouth, mentioned by Strabo and Pliny, which a jufter tranflation of the German word must probably have occafioned. We may obferve too here, that fome of the many cuticular difeafes of the Arabians and Africans, and that difeafe called the lame diftemper, in fome parts of North-America, do probably depend on a fcorbutic caufe, whofe different appearances may

be

be varied by different climates and ways of living. But however this may be, our Author having mentioned a few of the earlier Writers on this disease, refers for the best treatment of it to Boerhaave.After a lift of fome of the principal discoveries in Anatomy and Phyfiology, in confequence of Lord Bacon's fyftem, he employs the remainder of this Section, in his way of recounting the merits of Dr. Sydenham, Sir Ifaac Newton, and Boerhaave. Moft of this is certainly true and juft; but how trivial is it to fwell his treatise with informing us of Sir Ifaac's college and tutor; and how far from Leyden Boerhaave was born, with a vast deal more equally frivolous, and uneffential to his work?

A great part of his fourth Section-General Remarks on the Improvements, and the Hindrances of its Improvementof Medicine we fuppofe, is employed in a ftrange and needlefs recapitulation of what he had said in the first and third Sections, concerning Hippocrates and other antient Physicians. One of the most pertinent obfervations we meet with refpects fuch Doctors as deride all theory in Phyfic, of whom he fays, "Let them fay what they pleafe, they must form fome idea of the difeafe, and its fymptoms, under their cure, and have fome reafons for their chufing one method preferable to another, and for their doing fo: fo far as they do this, they have fome fort of a theory, though it [fhould] be [but] a weak and imperfect one." Several medical Reflections are interfperfed throughout this Section, which, though often crudely expreffed and arranged, are not amifs in fubstance, inferring fome medical Knowlege and much Experience. His confiderations on the ufe and abufe of Blifters, from p. 354 to 359, are very juft, being fimilar to thofe of Boerhaave, who wrote generally; and of Baglivi, who wrote profeffedly on the fubject. He affirms, "The Singultus, or Hiccup, not to be a convulfive motion of the ftomach and diaphragm, as it has commonly been thought, but of the Oefophagus, or Gullet." He afferts this obfervation to be folely his own, which may be the cafe: and, indeed, his opinion of this being the feat of the disease, seems no ways irrational; at least of that degree of it, which is removed by a fudden furprize, or by fwallowing a little cold water, that may wash down any irritating particles adhering to it. But as the ftomach (contiguous to the gullet) and the diaphragm are alfo irritable parts, it does not prove that the more strong and convulfive Hiccup, often occuring towards the fatal termination of different difeafes, and which does not yield to cold water, nor

even to mufk or anodynes, may not be feated in the ftomach or diaphragm. This Section, which more directly relates to the title-page of the book, and for whofe fake the others may have been wrote, concludes with mentioning a kind of Aphtha, or ulcerated throat in the American islands, of which disease our Author supposes himself the discoverer; referring, for the defcription and cure of it, to his Treatife on the Air and Diseases of Barbadoes.

The fifth Section profeffes to give fome remarks on the Materia Medica Like patient Readers, and attentive Reviewers, we have read and even re-perufed the 45 pages of which it confifts, without acquiring a fingle new idea or notion from it, which would be a very bad reason for detailing any part of it to our Medical Readers. It contains fome complaints on the great neceffity of a farther reformation of the Difpenfatory; but this might prove, as the ingenious Mr. Green fays, of mending the world itself, a vast defign: which we may fafely predict will never be accomplished to every body's fatisfaction.There is the lefs occafion for our taking notice of the fixth and last Section-On the Action of Fire, &c. as we had animadverted on his former Treatife-On the Nature, Properties, and Laws of Fire, -Review, Vol. XXII. p. 1, and do not find the difficulties we objected to fome parts of his fyftem alleviated in this Section.

Thus have we accomplished no fuperficial furvey of a work, whofe title imports and profeffes fo much; and we imagine fuch a painful furvey, as must have qualified us for a proper estimation of it. Befides the justice our Author has done to the great merit of Boerhaave and Sydenham, he has as justly recommended the Hippocratic method of carefully obferving the economy of nature in the conduct of difeafes, and of affisting her conformably to it. And if he had not repeatedly inculcated and infifted upon this above twenty times, it might, perhaps, from its effential importance, have been allowable. But were we to fubftract all the irkfome tautology of that fingle precept, after admitting such a repetition of it, the bulk of this performance would be confiderably reduced. With regard to all of the hiftorical part of Phyfic, which he has gleaned from Le Clerc and Friend, what has this been, in effect, but actum agere, fcriptum refcribere! How much more brief and ingenuous had it been, in this refpect, to have imitated Dr. Clifton, who premises to his State of Phyfic, and Plan for the Improvement of it,-as follows: To fay the truth, whoever reads the Hiftoire of

Le

Le Clerc, and the Continuation of it by Dr. Friend, may, if he pleafe, fave himself the trouble of reading much of the hiftorical part of this book." Befides, if the many trite matters in this work, which can inform none but mere novices, had been omitted, the fize of a moderate pamphlet would have contained all that could do real honour to the Author.

These few effential objections evidently affect the matter of his book; but how numerous are thofe which arife to the manner and expreffion of it! To fpecify a few more than we have occafionally cited, in fupport of our general cenfure, we have, p. 80, 81, a fentence about and about Afclepiades of Prufa, extended to above 40 lines, before it arrives, breathlefs, at a period; and containing many a but, of which (to make the least meaning and coherence) three at least should have been ands. See alfo p. 212, 213, for another series of these empty buts. In the character of Galen there is a fingle rambling fentence, containing near 40 lines, fome words of which must be changed, and others omitted, to make it grammar. We read, p. 106, "The Methodists (in Phyfic) objected against all Specifics; which, when enquired into, is only another term for our ignorance, or we know not how they act." A little lower it is faid," Notwithstanding they rejected all reafoning, his (i. e. Coelius Aurelianus') works have many ufeful remarks, and fome good methods of practice in them; therefore those who defire to see them may read his works, which he would do with more pleasure, if they were tranflated out of that barbarous Numidian Latin into Roman Latin." We have been careful in all these, and many equally crude paffages, that we fupprefs, to confult the Errata, in which we find not one of them corrected.

Now, if thefe would be grofs errors in a Writer, who pretended to no language but English, how muft they be aggravated in one, who affumes an intimacy. with the learned languages! As the Latin verfe fays-Extera quid quærit fua qui vernacula nefcit? And certainly it is reasonable that learning, as well as charity, fhould begin at home. We must not wonder then, if this Gentleman is but little happier, when he meddles with Latin, and makes it his own, as Martial fays of a bad repeater of his epigrams. In recommending the reading of Sydenham's works; to the decies repetita of Horace, our Latinift has prefixed magis, though magis decies does not fignify more than ten times, and is not Latin idiom, as plufquam would have been, and would have fignified. Some interciting reflection, however, on the decies repetita placebit,