writers on the Materia Medica seem to agree, that mushrooms are in general unwholesome; and the moderns, Lemery, Allen, Geoffrey, Boerhaave, Linnæus, and others, concur in the same opinion. There are numerous instances on record of their fatal effects, and almost all authors agree that they are fraught with poison.

The common esculent kinds, if eaten too freely, frequently bring on heart-burns, sicknesses, vomitings, diarrhoeas, dysenteries, and other dangerous symptoms. It is therefore to be wished, that they were banished from the table; but, if the palate must be indulged in these treacherous gratifications, or, as Seneca calls them, this voluptuous poison, it is necessary that those who are employed in collecting them should be extremely cautious, lest they should collect such as are absolutely pernicious; which, considering to whose care this is generally committed, may, and undoubtedly frequently has happened. The eatable mushrooms at first appear of a roundish form, like a button; the upper part and the stalk are very thin; the under part is of a livid flesh colour; but the fleshy part, when broken, is very white. When these are suffered to remain undisturbed, they will grow to a large size, and expand themselves almost to a flatness, and the red part underneath will change to a dark colour.

Small Hemlock, though it seems not to be of so virulent a nature as the larger hemlock, yet Boerhaave places it among the vegetable poisons, in his Institutes; and in his History of Plants he produces an instance of its pernicious effects. It is therefore necessary to guard against it, in collecting herbs for salads and other purposes. Attend therefore to the following description:

The first leaves are divided into numerous small parts, which are of a pale green, oval, pointed, and deeply indented. The stalk is slender, upright, round, striated, and about a yard high. The flowers are white growing at the tops of the branches in little umbels. It is an annual plant, common in orchards and kitchen gardens, and flowers in June and July. This plant has been often mistaken for parsley, and from thence it has received the name of fool's parsley.

The water distilled from the leaves of the common laurel has been frequently mixed with brandy, and other spirituous

liquors, in order to give them the flavour of ratafia; and the leaves are often used in cookery, to communicate the same kind of taste to creams, custards, puddings, and some sorts of sweetmeats. But in the year 1728, an account of two women dying suddenly in Dublin, after drinking some of the common distilled laurel water, gave rise to several experiments, made upon dogs, with the distilled water, and with the infusion of the leaves of the common laurel, communicated by Dr. Madden, Physician at Dublin, to the Royal Society in London; and afterwards repeated, in the year 1731, and confirmed by Dr. Mortimer, by which it appeared, that both the water and the infusion brought on convulsions, palsy, and death.

The laurel of the ancients, or the bay, is, on the contrary, of a salutary nature, and of use in several disorders; but the common laurel is a plant of a very destructive kind, and, taken in a large quantity, is a most formidable poison. However, if it be administered with proper caution, and in small proportion, the leaves of the plant are generally thought to be innocent; and, therefore, for kitchen purposes, as the flavouring of custards, and such like, the use, in guarded and common moderation, may be continued in perfect safety. The bitter parts of the plants, in which all the noxious properties are supposed to reside, are determined to be the same in quality, and not sensibly different in degree, from the the bitter almond, or from the kernels of any of the stoned fruits. Linnæus says, that in Holland, an infusion of this kind of laurel is used in the practice of the healing art. Miller also says, that laurel leaves are perfectly innocent. A nice attention, however, is certainly necessary in the use of them.

FAMILY PHYSICIAN.

RULES

FOR

PRESERVING HEALTH AND BEAUTY.

BEAUTY is the offspring of health, but health is frequently destroyed by neglect or ignorance. The greater number of our fashionable complaints and frailties might be easily prevented; particularly nervous diseases, and those affections of the skin known by the names of eruptions, discolourations, efflorescences, scorbutic taints, &c. How the desirable event may be accomplished we shall now endeavour to point out.

Of Bathing.

Much as we hear and speak of bathing, and of the great attention at present paid to cleanliness, the greater number, if not the whole of our fashionable complaints, originate from the want of care and proper management of the skin. Through unpardonable neglect in the earlier part of life, especially at the age of adolescence, the surface of the body is so unnaturally enervated by constant relaxation, that it oppresses, and as it were, confines our mental and bodily faculties; promotes the general disposition towards the complaints above alluded to; and, if not counteracted in time, must produce consequences still more alarming and deplorable.

We often hear people complain, that their skin is uneasy; a complaint but too prevalent among those who give themselves little trouble to inquire into its origin.—The skin unites in itself three very essential functions. It is the organ of the most extensive and useful sense, that of touch; it is the conductor of perspiration, the principal means which nature

employs to purify our fluids; and through the most admirable organization, the skin is enabled to absorb certain salutary parts of the surrounding atmosphere, and to guard us against the influence of others of an injurious tendency. For this purpose innumerable nerves and vessels are dispersed throughout the skin. It has been proved by accurate calculations made by the scale, that a healthy individual daily and insensibly perspires upwards of three pounds weight of superfluous and hurtful humours.

Bathing, whether in warm or cold water, produces the most salutary effect on the absorbent vessels; which would otherwise reconduct the impurities of the skin through the pores, to the no small injury of health. To those in a perfect state of vigour, the frequent use of the bath is less necessary than to the infirm ; as the healthy possess a greater power to resist impurities, by means of their unimpaired perspiration, the elasticity of their minute vessels, and the due consistence of their circulating fluids. The case is very different with the infirm, the delicate, and the aged. In these, the slowness of circulation, the viscidity or clamminess of their fluids, the constant efforts of nature to propel the impurities towards the skin, combine to render the frequent washing of their bodies an essential requi

site to their existence.

The warm, that is, the tepid or lukewarm bath, being about the temperature of the blood, between 96 and 98 deg. of Fahrenheit, has usually been considered as apt to weaken and relax the body; but this is certainly an ill-founded notion. It is so far from relaxing the tone of the solids, that we may justly consider it as one of the most powerful and universal restoratives we are acquainted with. Instead of heating the body, it has a cooling effect; it diminishes the quickness of the pulse, and reduces it in a greater proportion, according as the pulse has been more quick or unnatural, and according to the length of time this bath is continued. Hence, the tepid baths are of eminent service where the body has been overheated, from whatever cause, whether after fatigue from travelling or severe bodily exercise, or after violent exertion and perturbation of mind; as they allay the tempestuous and irregular movements in the body, and of consequence strengthen the system in the strictest sense. By their softening, moisten

ing, and tumefying power, they greatly contribute to the formation and growth of the body of young persons. Thus they are of singular benefit to those, in whom we perceive a tendency to arrive too early at the consistence of a settled age; so that the warm bath is particularly adapted to prolong the state of youth, and to retard for some time the approach of full growth. This effect the tepid baths produce in a manner exactly alike, in the coldest as well as in the hottest climates.

Bathing in rivers, as well as in the sea, is effectual for every purpose of cleaning the body; it washes away impurities from the surface, opens the cutaneous vessels for a due perspiration, and increases the activity of the circulation of the blood. For these reasons, it cannot be too much recommended, not only to the infirm and debilitated, under certain restrictions, but likewise to the healthy. The apprehension of bad consequences from the coldness of the water is in reality ill-founded; for, besides that it produces a strengthening effect by its astringent property, the cold sensation of itself is not easily hurtful. The same precaution, however, is requisite in the use of the cold. as in the tepid bath; for after having overheated the body, especially in the hot days of summer, it may prove instantly fatal, by inducing a state of apoplexy. Hence the plethoric, or such as are of full habit, the asthmatic, and all those who perceive a great determination of the blood to the head, should be very circumspect in the use of it.

The best method of cold bathing is in the sea or a river. Where, from necessity, it is done in the house, the shower bath is recommended, for which a proper apparatus is to be had at the tin-smith's. Where the saving or expence is an object, it may be effectually supplied by the following easy expedient:—Fill a common watering pan with cold water, let the patient sit down undressed upon a stool, which may be placed in a large tub; and let the hair, if not cut short, be spread over the shoulders as loosely as possible; then pour the water from the pan over the patient's head, face, neck, shoulders, and all parts of the body progressively down to the feet, till the whole has been thoroughly Netted. Now let the patient be rubbed dry, and take gentle exercise, until the sensation of the cold be succeeded by a gentle glow all over the body. When we first resort to this kind of bath it may be