or proclaiming the manner of his death. But the people, stimulated by sectarian animosity, violently seized the corpse and carried it off to the town-hall. Two medical gentlemen examined it next day, and without viewing either the cord or the imputed place of death, pronounced that the young man had been strangled. On this authority the parliament of Toulouse condemned John Calas to be broken on the wheel. He died protesting his innocence before Heaven.

At length, although too late, reflection came. The melancholy habits of the son were recalled to recollection. The silence through the house whilst the deed was doing; the unruffled appearance of the clothes; the single mark of the cord, which was exactly that which suicide produces: these were all remembered. It became known, too, that a dress proper for the dead had been found laid out on the counter. The cause of the injured family was espoused by the terrible Voltaire. An appeal was carried up to the council of state, who, on the 9th of May, 1765, reversed the previous decree, and vindicated the stained memory of John Calas.

Medical Reports on the Cholera.-Committees have been appointed by the College of Physicians and the Medical Society of this city, to prepare detailed histories of the epidemic or pestilential cholera. These two bodies have undertaken the task, in compliance with a request to that effect from the Board of Health. It is greatly to be wished that the board had preferred the request, and waited for answers, before it committed the absurdity of petitioning for leave to extend quarantine restrictions to all the waters of the Delaware. It would then, if we are not greatly mistaken, have learned the utter inutility of all quarantines and sanitary cordons to keep off cholera. What this community most want, is, not increased powers extended to the Board of Health, but a little more knowledge to enlighten this body_respecting the nature and discharge of its duties. The Board ought not to be a nursery for trading politicians.

THE HEALTH ALMANAC FOR 1833.

KEY, MIELKE AND BIDDLE will soon have ready for the trade, the Health Almanac for 1833. This work will be, as heretofore, under the direction of the Editors of the Journal of Health, by whom the maxims and rules for the preservation of health will be furnished.

NOTICE.

WHEREAS by assignment, bearing date the 14th of March, 1832, Henry H. Porter assigned all his estate and effects to the subscriber, in trust for the benefit of such creditors, (amongst others,) as shall make and execute a release within sixty days from and after the date of such assignment. Notice is hereby given to all persons indebted to the said Henry H. Porter, to make immediate payment to the subscriber, and creditors are invited to call at his Counting-house, No. 27 Minor street, where the release is ready for execution.

SHELDON POTTER, Assignee.

TO SUBSCRIBERS.

SUBSCRIBERS in arrears are earnestly requested to remit their dues without delay to S. POTTER. Justice to several individuals concerned, requires a speedy and final adjustment of the affairs of the Journal.

THE subject of spectral illusions is more intimately connected with that of health than many persons imagine. To ignorance, and to superstition, its constant attendant, many of the stories extant of spectres and supernatural visitations, are doubtless to be referred; but a large class of these illusions of the mind owe their origin to a disordered state of one or other of the organs of the body, and the morbid impression upon the brain this state produces. While, in the first case, it is by the spread of knowledge, and the more general diffusion of the benefits of education, that the deception is to be removed; in the latter, this can be effected only by appropriate remedies, and a course of life adapted to preserve the body in the healthy enjoyment of all its functions.

No person, well acquainted with the physiology of the human mind, will, for a moment, suppose that the apparition which appeared to Brutus, or the well-known fearful spectre which is said to have warned Lord Lyttleton of his approaching death, nor the many inspiring visions of angels and saints, and the appalling forms of demons, which divers persons have seen, had any real existence. Physiology. naturally induces us to refer them to the class of ocular spectres, and other hallucinations of the organs' of the senses, and their corresponding organs in the brain. This explanation is rendered more certain, in proportion as we are enabled from facts to determine their correct history, and the state of health of the persons who have been the subjects of such deceptions.

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Nevertheless, to the imaginations of the individuals themselves, all these supernatural appearances were, there can be little doubt, as distinctly formed as though they were real tangible objects, or corporeal beings "instinct with life." Though nothing more than illusions of the senses, yet, they were actually seen; and we need not, therefore, be surprised at the testimony which has been adduced in favour of their actual existence. The case of Nicolai, of Berlin, who was haunted by various fantasms, for a considerable length of time, while he was perfectly aware of their real character and origin, shows how readily a weak, ignorant, or superstitious mind, might be deceived in relation to them.

Persons labouring under delirium, are, it is well known, very liable to be disturbed by imaginary objects, the appearance of which ceases the moment the undue excitement of the brain is removed. In no case are these imaginary objects more conspicuous, than in that of the drunkard, labouring under an attack of delirium tremens-a thousand demons and horrid shapes surround constantly his pillow-disgusting reptiles crawl upon his bed and person, or defile the food and drink of which he is about to partake; and, so strong is the deception-so well convinced is he of the reality of the objects which his disordered senses conjure up to torment him, that he is incessantly putting forth his hands to remove them, or making vain attempts to escape their disgusting or dreaded presence. But it is not necessary that the brain should be disordered to so great a degree as in the above cases, in order for it to produce similar appearances. A very slight irritation or disturbance of certain portions of that organ, either from prolonged wakefulness-the indulgence of the depressing passions, excessive study, or even an overloaded stomach, or the presence, in the latter, of indigestible food, will often be sufficient to create the illusion, either when the person is in a state of imperfect sleep, or in broad day light, and even when surrounded by company.

They who are much endowed with a poetic, fervid and mystical disposition of mind, are those most subject to such illusions. It has been observed by phrenologists, that the parts of the brain which are considered to be the organs of ideality, and of the sentiment of the marvellous, especially the last, exercise, under certain circumstances, an influence over the intellectual organs, or those by which the objects of the external world are perceived, of such a nature as to induce these organs to act irregularly, and thus to call up ideas of recollection, with a force and vividness seldom surpassed by real impressions. By these means, a spectrum is produced, which, unless carefully compared with the real objects by which the individual is surrounded, is capable of deceiving him into a belief of its absolute existence. Novel com

binations of form are sometimes produced in this manner, by the morbid activity of certain organs of the brain; and thus persons seem, occasionally, to behold figures "of headless and misshapen monsters, of Gorgons, and of hydras dread," which have no prototypes in the material world. It must be recollected, that external objects are never seen in themselves, but merely the configurations on our organs, which the impressions such objects are adapted to create-this it is essential to keep constantly in recollection, when we endeavour to explain the phantasms of the ⚫mind.

Numerous were the omens attached by the credulous, in former days, to the manner, among other things, in which candles burnt, and particularly to the colour of their flames. When they burned blue, it was accounted ill luck, or else that some ghostly apparition was about to appear. Now, when the brain and nervous system are in the state favourable to the production of spectral illusions, the imagination will easily colour objects, without their really changing their tints, just as in the delirium of fevers, patients see spots of different colours on the walls, or imagine insects and motes upon the bed clothes. For the same morbid condition of the body, which may cause persons to see the spectral prognostic, would, in this case, cause them to behold the subsequent phantom, and thus the omen and its awful fulfilment would be viewed together in the support of supersti

tion. The occular spectra seen by children, who go to bed with too full stomachs, or with irritable nervous systems, by whatever cause produced, such as the passage of uncouth faces, or of fantastic pageants by the bed at night, are to be referred to the renewal, and owing to the disturbed state of the brain, modification of the real impressions of objects seen in the day time, or vividly presented to their minds by written or oral description.

Persons whose brains are disturbed by fever, or by disorders of the digestive organs, have seen spectral fantasms in their chambers at night, and have been enabled to compare them with surrounding objects, which have appeared more vivid, and, also, with the common ideas of imagination which have 'seemed less vivid and by this comparison they have been enabled to describe them as holding a kind of intermediate rank between real objects and the ordinary pictures of the imagination. Sometimes the other organs of sense, as those of hearing and of touch, are subject to similar delusions: and, in a few instances, where the contemporaneous hallucinations of several of the senses have occurred, the spectre produced, has appeared, accompanied with the highest proofs, apparently, of its reality. Dr. Ferriar has collected some interesting illustrations of the nature and cause of these spirits, and justly observes, that the mythology of the ancients was highly calculated to favour the indulgence in such

illusive phantoms. Many of the superstitions which were engrafted during the middle ages upon the doctrines of Christianity, performed, for various parts of Europe, what the fables of the heathen deities did in ancient Greece and Rome, and what the fairy mythology of the northern nations had effected for them.

But when we have developed the physical causes of what are termed supernatural apparitions, we have not done all that seems requisite to complete their history. Many remarkable coincidences between these phantoms of the brain, and certain real events, to which they are supposed to have related, have occurred from time to time, and are recorded with such seeming accuracy, that they form a curious and interesting subject of inquiry to the philosopher. As far as their physical history goes, dreams, night mares, visions, apparitions, and the like phenomena, are referrible to a common origin, and perfectly explicable upon the established laws of the animal economy; nor are the striking coincidences connected with them more difficult of being explained, upon natural principles, in any of the instances in which we are in possession of all the facts of the case. In many, the impression produced upon an enfeebled system, by the apparent warning or prediction, has, of itself, produced its accomplishment; whilst in others, the apparition and the subsequent event, to which its appearance is supposed to refer, depend upon the same cause—a disordered state of body in the individuals concerned. If correct and minute accounts of the various superstitions extant, in different ages, and among different people, were compiled and published, together with all the collateral facts connected with them, they would clear up many idle tales and prejudicial notions, and show the natural origin of a thousand fantasies,

Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire,
And air tongues which syllable men's names
On shores and sands, and desert wildernesses."

.DRINKS ALLOWED IN TRAINING.

To individuals who are undergoing a regular course of training, a very moderate quantity of drink is allowed. It is an established rule, that the less fluid there is taken into the stomach the better; too large a quantity being found to impede digestion, and to render the flesh soft and flabby. On no account is the quantity of drink taken permitted to exceed three English pints during the whole day. In many instances, the individual is restricted to even a less quantity. For breakfast and supper, the liquids made use of are either tea or milk, the latter being in most cases preferred. For dinner, home-brewed malt liquor, or