VIII. Gras. Sect. 1. Natural Meadows and Paftures.

2. Artifi

cial Graffes. Orchards.-X. Woods and Plantations.-XI. Waftes.-XII. Improvements. Sect. 1. Draining. 2. Paring and Burning. 3. Manuring. 4. Weeding. 5. Watering.-XIII. Live Stock. Sect. I. Cattle. 2. Sheep. 3. Horfes, and their Ufe in Hufbandry compared to Oxen. 4. Hogs. 5. Rabbits. 6. Poultry. 7. Pigeons. 8. Bees.XIV. Rural Economy. Sect. 1. Labour, Servants, Labourers, Hours of Labour. Provisions. 2. 3. Fuel.-XV. Political Economy, as connected with or affecting Agriculture. Sect. 1. Roads. 2. Canals. 3. Fairs. 4. Weekly Markets. 5. Commerce. 6. Manufactures. 7. Poor. 8. Population.-XVI. Obftacles to Improvement, including general Obfervations on agricultural Legislation and Police. XVII. Mifcellaneous Obfervations. Sect. 1. Agricultural Societies. 2. Weights and Meafures.-Conclufion. Means of Improvement, and the Meafures calculated for that Purpofc.-Appendix. "Perfection in fuch enquiries is not in the power of any body of men to obtain at once, whatever may be the extent of their views, or the vigour of their exertions. If Lewis XIV. eager to have his kingdom known, and poffeffed of boundlefs power to effect it, failed fo much in the attempt. that, of all the provinces in his kingdom, only one was fo defcribed as to fecure the approbation of pofterity, it will not be thought ftrange that a Board, poffeffed of means fo extremely limited, should find it difficult to reach even that degree of perfection which perhaps might have been attainable with more extenfive powers. The candid reader cannot expect in thefe Reports more than a certain portion of ufeful information, fo arranged as to render them a bafis for further and more detailed enquiries. tention of the intelligent cultivators of the kingdom, however, will doubtless be excited; and the minds of men in general, gradually brought to confider favourably of an undertaking, which will enable all to contribute to the national ftores of knowledge, upon topics fo truly interefting as thofe which concern the agricultural interefts of their country interefts which on juft principles never can be improved, until the prefent ftate of the kingdom is fully known, and the means of its future improvement afcertained with minuteness and accuracy." P. 7.

3. Hay Harveit. 4. Feeding.-IX. Gardens and

The at

This view of the agriculture of Kent abounds with various and ufeful information. We fhall remark, however, fome

2. Sort. 3. Steeping.

heads: 1. Preparation; tillage, manure. 4. Seed (quantity fown.) 5. Time of fowing. 6. Culture whit growing; hoe, weeding, feeding.. Harvest. 8. Threshing. 9. Produce. 10. Manufacture of bread. In general, the fame heads will fuit the following grain: Barley, Oats, Beans, Rye, Peafe, Buck-heat. Vetches; Application. Cole feed; Feeding, Seed. Turnips; Drawn, Fed, kept on Gras, kept in Houfes."

U u

BRIT. CRIT. VOL, VIII, DEC. 1796.

blemishes

blemishes and defects (as we conceive them to be) which occur in it; and by fo doing, fhall endeavour to contribute fomething, at leaft, towards the accomplishment of the important objects of this indefatigable and useful board.

• Mr. Boys objects, with "great confidence," but with little argument, againft cottagers occupying two or three acres of land, p. 31. To his predictions we fhall oppose our own knowledge, referring to the British Critic, vol. vii. p. 135, for the good effects of this plan, proved by the experience of several generations.

Another fault in this work is, the frequent and invidious declamation against tithes, without a fingle word of conceffion on the other fide, or an attempt to offer any proper commutation. The uncertainty of rents, where the tenure is from year to year, is a far greater obftacle to improvement than tithes; yet we never heard of a propofal for compelling landlords to grant leases.

The information concerning poor-rates (p. 39) roads (p. 168) the poor (p. 174) is fuperficial and defective; and the opinion concerning the corn and wool laws (p. 176) is rash and adventurous. When a commiffion of fewers is propofed (p. 184) for draining fome vales of marfh-land, the author feems to be unacquainted with the vaft expence of time and money, at which bufinefs is done under the authority of courts of fewers. The office of clerk to these commiffioners is fo agreeable a thing, and the commiffioners fo unneceffarily numerous, that (as in the cafe of coroners) a whole county is fometimes put into commotion, when fuch an office becomes vacant. Upon the whole, Mr. Boys appears to be a good practical farmer, but very incompetent to advise concerning matters of political economy and legislation.

ART. VII. Zoonomia; or, The Laws of organic Life. Vol. II. By Erafmus Darwin, M. D. F. R. S. Author of the Botanic Garden. 4to. 772 pp. 11. 10s. Johnfon. 1796.

IN our Review for February, 1795, we examined the first volume of this work, which contained the author's theory of the generation and propagation of animals and vegetables. According to this theory, all animals and vegetables take their origin from fingle living filaments, fufceptible of irritation, which is the agent that puts them in motion. As the filament

5

increafes

increases and obtains additional parts, it acquires new fufceptibilities, or is capable of being affected by different kinds of irritation, until all the organs of the body are formed, and it has attained its completion. Upon the fame principle, it may be obferved, the author might have accounted for the formation of the univerfe. But, as he has not attempted to prove the existence of these filaments, neither does it seem capable of demonftration, the whole can only be confidered as a philofophical reverie. This fufceptibility of irritation in the animal body is made alfo the bafis of the author's system of phyfic, which is the subject of the present volume.

"All the difeafes originate," he says, (Pref. p. 1) " in the exuberance, deficiency, or retrograde action of the faculties of the fenforium, as their proximate caufe; and confift in the difordered motions of the fibres of the body, as the proximate effect of the exertions of those disordered faculties."

The reader will readily fee this is only an extenfion of the doctrine of healthy and diseased action, of Mr. John Hunter.

"The fenforium," the, author proceeds to fay," poffeffes four diftinct powers or faculties, which are occafionally exerted, and produce all the motions of the fibrous parts of the body; these are, the faculties of producing fibrous motions in confequence of irritation, which is excited by external bodies; in confequence of fenfation, which is excited by pleasure or pain; in confequence of volition, which is excited by defire or averfion; and in confequence of affociation, which is excited by other fibrous motions. We are hence fupplied with four natural claffes of difeafes derived from their proximate caufes; which we shall term those of irritation, thofe of fenfation, thofe of volition, and thofe of affociation."

The first of thefe claffes confifts of difeafes arifing from increafed, decreased, or retrograde irritative motions. The fecond, of diseases arifing from, increased, decreased, or retrograde fenfitive motions. The third, of difeafes arifing from increased or decreafed volition. The fourth of difeafes arifing from increased, decreased, or retrograde affociate motions. The curative indications, therefore, in all difeafes, confift, according to this doctrine, in diminishing, increasing, or regulating ftimuli, or excitements, to action. Dr. A. Fothergil, in his inquiry into the fufpenfion of vital action, &c. p. 178, compreffes this doctrine into a fmall compafs. "Vitality," he fays, "confifts in action and reaction between the vital organs and their refpective ftimuli. In nicely adjusting ftimuli to the due tone of the irritable fibre, confifts the principal fecret in the art of healing." Strip thefe fentences of their oracular jargon, and what do they teach more than is generally

U u 2

known?

known? That the powers of the conflitution, when weak and languid, must be ftrengthened and restored, or ftimulated, if it must be fo called, by a nourishing diet, wine, bark, opium, blifters; when too ftrong, repreffed, by bleeding and other evacuants, a fparing diet, neutral falts, &c. We are not furprifed, therefore, that we find no material alteration or im provement in the method of treating difeafes, the great end of medicine, deduced from this theory, but that the same means are in general reforted to, that have been recommended by former writers. We find, indeed, fome conjectural fuggeftions, but as they have not pailed the ordeal of experiment, we must leave to future obfervation to appreciate their value.

The principal view therefore of the volume before us seems confined to the giving a new claffification or arrangement of difeafes, and, in many inftances, in only giving new titles to the orders and genera of other writers. That thefe names convey more clear and diftinct ideas of the difeafes included under them, than thefe ufed by Sauvages, Cullen, &c. or that they will be more cafily comprehended by pupils, for whofe ufe we confider thefe artificial arrangements as principally, if not folely, intended, we dare not fay. On the contrary, in many inftances, we think they rather tend to embarrass and confound, than to elucidate the fubjects they are meant to describe. "The term fever," the author fays, Pref. p. x. " is gene rally given to a collection of morbid fymptoms, which are, indeed, fo many diftinct difeafes, that fometimes appear together and fometimes feparately," &c. Confonantly to this idea, the explanation of the caufes of febrile rigor, heat, thirst, delirium, &c. are found under different claffes, orders, and genera. The fame circumftance occurs in the account of many other difeafes. Thus the malady occafioned by the bite of rabid animals, appears under the third order of the firit clafs, on account of the hydrophobia, or dread of water, which the author attributes to the retrograde motion of the fibres of the cefophagus, and again in the first order of the third clafs, or diseases of volition. Under this clafs alfo the author places the tetanus trifmus, or locked-jaw, for which he accounts in the following whimlical manner.

"Men are taught to be afhamed," he says, p. 345," of screaming from pain, in their early years; hence they are prone to exert the muscles of the jaws inftead, which they have learnt to exert fre quently and violently from their infancy; whence the locked-jaw."

The following obfervation we have extracted from the fame page, as deferving of notice.

"I twice witneffed the locked jaw, from a pain beneath the fternum, about the part where it is complained of in painful afthma, or

angina pectoris, in the fame lady, at fome years diftance of time. The last time it had continued two days, and the wrote her mind, or expreffed herself by figns. On obferving a broken tooth, which made a small aperture in her mouth, I rolled up five grains of opium like a worm, about an inch long, and, introducing it over the broken tooth, pushed it onward by means of a fmall crow quill; as it dif folved I obferved fhe fwallowed her faliva, and, in lefs than half an hour, fhe opened her mouth, and conversed as ufual.”

The method here ufed, of adminiftering the opium, is ingenious, but we must not expect it will always prove equally fuccefsful. We fhall lay before our readers fome further fpecimens of the author's defcription and treatment of difcafes.

"Obefitas. Corpulency may be called," he fays, "an anafarea, or dropfy of fat, fince it must be owing to an analogous caufe; that is, to the deficient abforption of fat compared to the quantity fecreted into the cells which contain it. The method of getting free from too much fat, without any injury to the conftitution, confifts, firft, in putting on a proper bandage upon the belly, fo that it may be tightened or relaxed with eafe, as a tightifh under waiftcoat, with a double row of buttons. This is to comprefs the bowels and increase their abforption; and it removes one principal caufe of corpulency, which is the loofenefs of the fkin. Secondly, he fhould omit one entire meal, as fupper; by this long abftinence from food, the abforbent fyftem will act on the mucus and fat with greater energy. Thirdly, he fhould drink as little as he can with eafe to his fenfations; fince, if the abforbents of the ftomach and bowels fupply the blood with much aqueous fluid, the abforbents of the cellular membrane will act with lefs energy. Fourthly, he should ufe much falt or falted meat, which will increase the perfpiration, and make him thirty; and if he bears this thirft, the abforption of his fat will be greatly increased, as appears in fevers and dropfies with thirst; this I believe to be more efficacious than foap. Fifthly, he may use aerated alkaline water for his drink, which may be fuppofed to render the fat more fluid; or he may take foap in large quantities, which will be decompofed in his ftomach. Sixthly, fhort reft and conftant exercife." P. 112.

Of the efficacy of abftinence, particularly from liquids, in reducing corpulency, the cafe of Thomas Wood, miller, of Billericay, in Effex, recorded in the fecond volume of the Medical Tranfactions, is a remarkable inftance. Wood, by a courfe of abftinence more rigid than will be often followed, reduced himself, from the moit unwieldy corpulency, to a moderate fize, and, at the fame time, recovered his health, which had been materially injured by former intemperances. An abftemious diet, therefore, with early rifing and exercife, and wearing a tightith bandage or under-waillcoat, to fupport the parietes of the belly, are what we would recommend in this cafe. The remaining directions, particularly that of feeding on falted provifions, are to be efteemed rather as conjectures

of