418

THE LANCET.

LONDON: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1851.

THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN REVIEW AND ITS SUPPORT OF QUACKERY

IT is only for objects of paramount importance, and underthe pressure of an unavoidable duty, that we permit ourselvesto make reference to the writings of our colleagues of theperiodical press. But we cannot read the tissue of perversityand nonsense under the title of " Odyle, Mesmerism, Electro-Biology, &c." in the British and Foreign Review of this quarter,without exposing the fallacies it contains, and correctingthe errors into which they might mislead the more unthinkingof its readers. Reviewers find no worse employment of theirtime than in seeking to give plausibility to fraud, and to sur-round quackery with an atmosphere of affected knowledge.But the conceit of little learning, alone could have led to theperpetration of fifty-three pages on so silly a subject. Weshall endeavour to dismiss it in a much more worthy and muchmore curt manner. It would be well, however, if reviewerswould remember that they have not been elected to their

places; that their office has been assumed; and if they wouldsave themselves from the charge of presumption, they mustdiscard all egotistical feelings, and evince the most uncom-promising integrity. It is impossible for us to do more thanguess at the motives which have led astray the writer of thearticle in question; but we doubt not every judicious readerwill be struck with the extraordinary amount of conceit whichruns through it.In spite of all the glozings with which self-satisfied men

seek to surround this subject, we do not mean to surrenderthe real battle-ground. It is simply a question of commonhonesty. No displays of futile learning, and no clap-trapappeals to philosophy, orimputations of illiberality, will induceus to yield up the defences of science. Admit once these

mesmerists into the honourable ranks of our profession, andwe should be as bad as they. "The occupant of an important" chair in a renowned university" has no " claim upon the" critical notice of the profession which is justly denied to men" of minor position and pretensions." We do not mean to

"congratulate Messrs. BRAID, BENNETT, and WOOD on their"efforts to place mesmerism and mesmeric doings in their" true position." This braggart philosophy ought, on the con-trary, to receive a severe check, and the men who court atten-tion and popularity by stepping from the ranks, must bereduced to their places by resolute command. If they deservefurther notice than other men, it is that of severer censure.

They are the guardians of science, and if they betray the postcommitted to their keeping, no other reward than the retribu-tion of traitors is fit for them.The strange and devious symptoms of hysteria and catalepsy

have been long known to and noted by physicians. The effectson the nervous system of monotony of sound and uniformity ofmotion are familiar even to nurses. The child hushed by a

lullaby, and rocked in the cradle, gives an example of thephilosophy of these men. The pretended facts which havebeen added to our store of knowledge by mesmerists we un-hesitatingly pronounce to be fables. That this is so, let ourreaders judge by the extracts we are about to lay before themfrom the article in the British and Foreign Medico-Ckirurgical ;

Review. They will hardly credit that weakness and culpableindulgence could be carried such a length.The reviewer imagines he has made a great discovery in his

classification of what he calls mesmeric phenomena into

subjective and objective, which, as far as his clouded intellectpermits him to be understood, mean phenomena developingthemselves in the body of the operator or the subject, andphenomena arising in the body of the sufferer or the object.With this weak and puzzled distinction he professes to makepalpable some errors into which he admits the mesmeristshave fallen, and to reconcile their jargon with philosophy.Thisconceit forms the whole staple of his long and weary article.In following it out he involves himself in many gross and

absurd contradictions, but he yields up every point whichthe most bigoted mesmerist would seek to attain. In illus4

tration of these observations we lay the following quotationbefore our readers :-

" We know of no reason why magneto should not appearluminous in the dark, except that we and the greater numberof men and women cannot see their luminosity; but this maybe from a defect in us. Still, on the other hand, the ’sensi-tives’ who do see it, may see it subjectively from a defect inthem."

The italics are the author’s, not ours. We would suggest tohim that there is another little reason on which the medical

profession will retain its hold. It is that mesmerists do not

speak the truth: this may explain the difficulty put by thereviewer! But what can be looked for from an author who

is " willing to take the statements in Baron VoN REICHEN."13ACH’S work as statements of facts, and allow them in respect" of their truthfulness the same degree of weight that he would"allow to any statements whatever."

The italics again are not ours.Let our readers attend to the following quotations, and then

say whether the reviewer who has given them without strongreprehension, does his duty to science.

" When M dlle. REICIIEL was out in a clear night, she alwayspointed out the Milky Way as decidedly cool, as also thePleiades, the Great Bear, and others; and in general the starryexpanse was felt cool, and only individual stars caused a sen.sation of warmth. These were invariably stars of the fistmagnitude, in short, always planets."

" When I raised my hands to Mdlle. REiCHEL, she felt, evenat a distance, my left hand diffusing warmth, my right coolness,on her, like a distant magnet :’

11 One point of remarkable power is the mouth, with thetongue; it is very cool, and therefore negative. The sensitivefeel everything most distinctly with the lips, especially theodylic influence."" Here we obtain a not altogether uninteresting explanation

of the nature of a kiss. The lips are one of the foci of odyle,and the flames which our poets describe as belonging to themdo in fact play there."But the climax is to come. " Baron V. REICHENBACH, a

man of fifty-six, wrapt in repose, in bed, with a young man’s" hand placed every hour on the pit of his stomach, measuring

I the intensity of its odylic warmth," is a disgusting pictureof imbecility which Germany alone could venture to placebefore the world as a sample of philosophy.We are told also that one of the Baron’s subjects, named

F. WEIDLICH, had been in the English navy, and had acquired" no very good name among the Viennese physicians." To this

objection the Baron answers, 11 I do not inquire into suchmatters :’ Yet this reviewer has nothing to say, " which is not

very creditable to the Baron’s scientific truthfulness." Forour part, we doubt whether he would be believed on his oathat the Old Bailey.

419LIFE ASSURANCE AND THE NE’4V EQUITABIE.

Did we generally observe, on the part of the writers in thisReview, forwardness in the cause of science, and anxiety tohail discovery, we should be less inclined to mark their faults;but when we contrast their desire to bolster up things whichall sound physiologists and physicians feel only as matter of I Idisgrace, with the ill-concealed evidence of habitual silence onthings which have received the assent of the scientific world,— !frequently, too, of niggardly praise of some individuals, andoften of extravagant encomium of others within favoured

circles,-wefeellittle disposition to be lenient; and theless thatit is not the first time they have signalized themselves in thedefence of quackery.

MANY professional men, in whom a rankling sense of in-justice has been produced by the conduct of the non-payinglife assurance companies, have asked us to point out how theycan best serve the interests of the New Equitable. Theyhave felt that something more than a common matter is at

stake, in the career of this candidate for professional favour;for it must be obvious, had this office halted in its progress, orhad the intentions of its founders been defeated, there wouldhave been an end of the struggle between the Profession andthe Life Assurance Directors. The latter would have triumphed,and to an indefinite period the claims of medical men to aliberal and equitable payment for the great services they

. render life assurance, would have been postponed. However,it has not been so. The victory has been the other way; andit remains to show how the result of that victory may be de-veloped and secured.

In the first place, medical men ought themselves to beassurers. Upon no other class of the community is life assur-ance more decidedly incumbent. In the great majority ofcases, the interest of a medical man in his practice is purelyand solely a life interest. A man may, from small beginnings,so proceed that in the course of years he has a practice worth,say ael000a year. Now.at the I east computation, such a practiceis worth ae3000. Yet it is a personal matter. It is of little or

no value when the hand and the head which have made it can

act and think no longer. The time of death comes, and the

result of years of labour collapses, and that which produced,in the hands that made it,ael000 in one year, in the next mayscarcely yield £ 100 to a successor, who, however qualified,may be alien to the hearts and sympathies won by the originalpossessor by a long series of services. Now is it not a verymidsummer madness for such a man to live in this uncertain

world without insuring his life ?-in other words, without insuringthe capital which he has accumulated in the formation of apractice, but which is in so perishable a form that it dies withits possessor! 1 The merchant insures his ships against thestorm, the husbandman insures his glass against the hail, hiscattle against the murrain-even his crops against the vicis-situdes of the weather; and shall not the physician or sur-geon insure that capital which he carries in his brain, whichis incommunicable, and which the casualties of life and deathmay at any moment render perfectly useless ! J The tradesman

who makes a business, the merchant who establishes a traffic,may hope for its continuance when the power that created itis still; but not so with the medical man. A medical practiceis often a burden, instead of a blessing, if left as the sole re-

source of a widow or orphans. There are, then, the mostserious reasons why medical men, of all others, should insure

their lives, and thus perpetuate to those who come after them,in some degree at least, the work they have striven to dowhile in the possession of life and strength.Within the last few years, how many benevolent societies,

for the special interest of the profession, have appeared. This

is at once an indication of the great want of provision for thefamilies of medical men, and of the desire to provide, how-ever inadequately, for that want. But how much better than

all benevolences it would be, if the principle of self-provisioncould be firmly imprinted in the professional mind! How

desirable to leave a family to independence, instead ofcharitable dependence, even when want and penury can beavoided by the latter! We are not impugning the value ofour medical charities, we are only giving the just pre-eminenceto a reliance upon self-providence, instead of upon the provi-dence of others. And we must be forgiven for saying, thatwe believe there are few, very few, persons in the profession,who have passed the age of thirty years, who have not themeans of insuring their lives, at least to some extent. The

man who has the means, who has a family, and who still hasnot realized a fortune, commits a sin every day he remainsuninsured. Let those, then, who have hitherto kept alooffrom life assurance examine into its beneficial principles, andlet them ascertain the claims of the New Equitable to theirconfidence. On the other hand, let those who have alreadyinsured, use their influence with others, and thus join in oneof the most noble and righteous propagandas of modern

civilization.

But beyond the personal support which the New Equitablemay fairly claim, much may be done in other ways to advanceits interests. The medical profession has never yet learnt theimmense influence it exerts, or may exert, in promoting provi-dent and life-assurant habits among the community. This thefounders of the New Equitable know, in a way which hasnever been arrived at before. They have met with instances,some in the great towns, others in agricultural localities, inwhich medical men of energy have given themselves heart andsoul to the interests of the New Equitable, and have by indivi-dual exertion brought an influx of lives to the office, such ascould not have been effected by men of any other calling orstation in the kingdom. This is a proved fact, and is one ofthe remarkable results evoked by the experience of the newcompany. The influence of the profession for a good object,like that of life assurance, is indeed incalculable, and has neveryet been dreamt of by its members. Mixing with all classesin more intimate and confidential communication than any

persons besides, it is not wonderful that words of weight andvalue should bring forth results, when it is so evident that itis the good of the hearer and not of the speaker that is heldin view. A man who insures his life, does so not only in thecommon, but in the literal sense. His chances of life are

greater than before he has become an insurer. It is well

known that those in easy circumstances live longer than thosewho have to meet the rude buffetings of the world. Well,the man who has insured, becomes a man of property. Hehas property, real and tangible wealth, to leave, and he be-comes one of the affluent classes, and by so much is his lifethe more valuable. His life is no longer corroded by visionsof a beloved wife, or the children of his bosom, left after hisdecease to want and suffering. Words of this kind can be

dropped into the ear by none so weightily as by the medical

420 MEETING AT LEAMINGTON—THE ANALYTICAL SANITARY COMMISSION.

man; and it must be a pleasant duty to influence others totheir good.These are only some of the modes in which professional

men may serve an office in which they themselves feel con-fidence. And those we have given are only some of thereasons why the profession should become active in the

matter. Medical men have complained so much of the con-duct of the old and penurious offices toward themselves, thatunless they would act as children, they are bound to supportan institution avowedly established with the object of con-quering from the unfair and illiberal establishments, the justrights of the profession. Certainly no individual, nor theprofession collectively, has, or can have, any right to com-

plain, if for the future, the relation between the medical prac-titioners of this country and the insurance offices, be one ofcomplaint, grudging, and insult. The profession must surelynow act, or they must forfeit the right to complain and todemand.

ACCORDING to intelligence we have received, our hints tothe students of the University of Edinburgh respecting theremoval of their globulistic professors, will not be thrownaway. We are, moreover, assured that those of the professorswho have kept aloof from all tampering with globulism andits practisers, would be delighted to leave the matter in thehands of the students. It is rumoured that another effort is

to be made by the professors to purify the chairs, and thatpending this, students will be encouraged to absent them-selves from the classes of the obnoxious teachers. As we

have already said, the best way to empty the chairs would befirst to empty the benches.But we trust the Scotch students will, for the honour of their

National University, take some steps beyond mere absenceand silence, to show their disapproval of the state of thingswhich has been permitted during the last seven years. The

Town Council is, we are told, to be memorialized strongly bythe Faculty of Medicine. Let the students send in their

Memorial-nay, let them present it to the Town Council in abody, so as to show these anomalous patrons of learning thatmedical students are anxious that the sources from which

they derive their knowledge shall be pure. The disputed iprofessorships in Edinburgh is really A STUDENTS’ MATTER. Thecontinuance of globulistic professors will injure the character ofthe students, and the rising generation of medical men in Scot-land, far more than it will damage those now established in prac-tice. In London, globulism is felt to be a matter in which thehonour and credit of our students are intimately mixed up.It is for this reason that the students’ societies of our hospitalsand schools have met to repudiate all connexion with theglobulistic quackery, or with those who follow it. The

coming November will be a time of no mean import to theUniversity of Edinburgh; and if the students do not behavemanfully, great and long-continued mischief must be the

result.

IT is by such meetings as that recorded at page 398 of thelast number of THE LANCET, that the success of the newMedical College is to be ensured. The medical practitionersof Leamington and Warwick have set a worthy example totheir professional brethren throughout the empire - anexample which it is earnestly hoped may be generally fol-

lowed. Let such a meeting as that which took place atLeamington on the 9th Oct., be held in every considerabletown in the kingdom, and it will soon cease to be a reproachto our profession that it contains no asylum for its aged mem-

bers, and no college for the orphan children of those who havedied without the means of providing for their offspring. It

will be a disgrace, indeed, to the practitioners of medicine ofthis kingdom, if the necessary funds for building and endow-ing Mr. PROPERT’S projected college are not speedily collected.

THE

ANALYTICAL SANITARYCOMMISSION.

RECORDS OF THE RESULTS OF

MICROSCOPICAL AND CHEMICAL ANALYSESOF THE

SOLIDS AND FLUIDSCONSUMED BY ALL CLASSES OF THE PUBLIC.

CHICORY AND COFFEE,WITH THEIR

ADULTERATIONS.

IN previous Reports we quoted the observations made byDr. Pereira in reference to the employment of mineral in-gredients, as Venetian-red and reddle, for the purpose of height-ening the colour of the roasted and ground chicory-root.In corroboration of these remarks, we detected a red earthy

substance in two samples, the results of the examination ofwhich we have already made known.As, however, the use of such ingredients is of great import-

ance in a sanitary point of view, we have instituted specialanalyses, in order to determine the extent to which this kindof adulteration is carried.The evidence of the use of these substances, as we have

already seen to be the case with cocoa, is principally derivedfrom the incineration of a certain quantity of the chicory-powder. All vegetable substances, whether coloured or not,yield, on incineration, a greyish-white ash. The ash of colouredearthy substances, on the contrary, after being burned in acrucible, remains more or less coloured.

As, however, chicory is the root of a plant, and as the earthymatter is but seldom entirely removed from it by washing, theash of even genuine chicory not unfrequently exhibits, on thisaccount, a slight degree of coloration, being occasionallybrownish, or of light-fawn colour. It is only, therefore, whenthe ash is decidedly coloured, and especially when of a red orrusty-red colour, that the presence of Venetian-red, reddle, orsome other analogous substance, is rendered certain.

In these facts, therefore, we have a ready means of de-termining whether a sample of chicory, or any other vegetablepowder, contains an admixture of mineral ingredients-a con-clusion which may be confirmed by chemical experiment.In the following analyses we have not confined our atten-

tion to this one particular, but have made complete analyses ofthe whole of the samples under examination.

RESULTS OF THE MICROSCOPICAL AND CHEMICAL EXAMINA-TION OF SAMPLES OF CHICORY OBTAINED OF DIFFERENTMANUFACTURERS.

We refrain from publishing the names, except in theinstance of proprietary articles, of the manufacturers ofthe samples of chicory given below, as they were not pro-cured by ourselves direct from the manufacturers, but throughothers.