In the fixth, the author fhews the duty of praifing God for fignal mercies and deliverances; it was preached in TrinityChurch, New-York, September 17, 1758, on occafion of the remarkable fuccefs of his majesty's arms in America, during that campaign. The appendix contains the three following pieces;-An carneft Address to the Colonies, particularly thofe of the fouthern diftrict, on the opening of the campaign, 1758;-An Account of the College and Academy of Philadelphia ;—and A philofophical Meditation, with a religious Addrefs to the Supreme Being. R A Collection of the yearly Bills of Mortality, from 1657 to 1758 inclufive. Together with feveral other bills of an earlier date. To which are fubjoined, I. Natural and Political Obfervations on the Bills of Mortality. By Capt. John Graunt, F. R. S. reprinted from the fixth edition in 1676. II. Another Effay in political Arithmetic, concerning the growth of the city of London; with the measures, periods, caufes, and confequences thereof. By Sir William Petty, Knt. F. R. S. reprinted from the edition printed at London in 1683. III. Obfervations on the paft Growth and prefent State of the City of London; reprinted · from the edition printed at London in 1751; with a continu ation of the tables to the end of the year 1757. By Corbyn Morris, Efq; F. R. S. IV. A comparative View of the Dif cafes and Ages, and a Table of the Probabilities of Life, for the laft Thirty Years. By J. P. Efq; F. R. S. 4to. 9s. Boards. Millar. THE HE four numbered tracts, which compofe the latter part of this book, having appeared in former editions, it is foreign to our purpose to take any notice of them upon this re-publication. What comes under our prefent cognizance is the collection of bills of mortality; certainly a really, though not a very apparently, ufeful regifter. As we have ucither time, inclination, nor any prefent motive for confidering or comparing the tables themselves; we apprehend it will fuffice, on a fubject which, to the majority of readers, will appear fo very dry and uninterefting, if we only prefent them with an abstract of the general obfervations which occurred to the compilers of the tables, and are mentioned in the preface. Thefe tables commence with the year 1593: but as, at that time, bills of mortality were only made occafionally, at times times of the plague; it was not until the year 1603 that regular weekly bills commenced, which have been continued to the prefent time, But though bills of mortality commenced at that time, yet they were but partial ones; fince the number of parishes now included within them, was taken in at various times; and it was not till the year 1746, that the addition of St. Mat thew, Bethnal-green, compleated the prefent number. These bills have not arrived to us in an uninterrupted fucceffion, many being loft; which the publisher invites any poffeffor of to communicate, to add to the work. Nor are thofe now preferved, kept fo exact as might be wished., The bills, even in their compleatest form, will afford but an imperfect guess at the state of the metropolis at the time fince they comprehend only baptifms of thofe of the established religion, the numerous bodies of diffenters being entirely excluded. Their register of deaths is not more perfect, fince it includes only those buried according to the rites of the church of England. The one omiffion will not balance the other; as more are buried according to the church of England, than are baptized into it; and a confiderable number of all forts are now carried from London to be interred in the country. Add to this, that thofe buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster-abbey, the Temple Church, St. Peter's ad Vincula in the Tower, the Rolls, and Lincoln-Inn Chapel, the Charter-houfe, and other places, are taken into no account. It were to be wifhed, that they were continued upon a more exact plan. In their prefent ftate, however, we learn, that though the city of London has been free from the plague, for near a century paft; yet, before the laft plague, there were but few yearly bills without it: which countenances a doubt of its being imported from other countries. Since, were it introduced with our merchandize, our imports being confiderably ms é fince that time, by the increase of our trade; we muft have more infection brought among us now, than we used to have. But one evident cause of this happy alteration, appears to be the more open and commodious plan upon which the city of London was built, after the dreadful, though fortunate, fire which immediately fucceeded the latt plague : the inhabitants not being crouded fo clofely together as formerly, Thus, perhaps, it is owing to its being more thinly peopled than the rest of the world, that America has never yet been vifited with the plague, while the crouded and filthy cities of Cairo and Conftantinople are feldom free from it. Another, and F 2 probably probably the most effectual, prefervative is the great plenty of water conducted to every houfe, and wafhing the streets into the common fewers; thereby conftantly hindering the tendency to putrefaction. There are many more judicious remarks to be found in this preface, which will be useful to thofe who more peculiarly ftudy the fubjects treated of in this volume. N Medical Facts and Experiments. By Francis Home, M. D. Fellow of the Royal College of Phyficians in Edinburgh. 8vo. 4s. Lound. Millar, &c. DR R. Home baving premised, in a fhort advertisement, that a book of facts and experiments is the moft ufeful in the medical art, fpeaks of this publication in the following terms: The cafes contain fomething fingular in the fymptoms or in the cure. I have felected thofe chiefly which ⚫ ended unfuccessfully, as they afford the fulleft picture of the difeafe, as they often teach more than thofe which have a contrary iflue, as they fhew the fallacy of trufting to a few • obfervations in the cure of difeafes, as they teach us not to be too fanguine in our hopes and promifes, and as they will < at leaft procure credit, which has not always happened to 'cases that were most successful.' It must be acknowledged, this method of a phyfician's publifhing his own fallibility and ill fuccefs has a very antique and unfafhionable, but a most honeft and candid appearance; and feems to proceed rather from liberal philanthropy than contracted felf-love. It naturally introduces the reflections which Dr. Home frequently makes at the conclufion of fome of the unfuccessful cafes; by querying, among other things, if fuch a medicine or evacuation, which had been used, had been omitted; or if fuch as had been omitted had been used, whether a different event might not have been the refult? In femething of this kind we apprehend every thoughtful and confcientious phyfician muft exercife himself on many an unfuccefsful catastrophe, (efpecially if it was unexpected) in the course of his practice, by confidering, whether he could wish any thing added, omitted, or altered in his conduct throughout the cafe, for his future regulation in fimilar ones. Our Author having alfo very generally exhibited his procefs and prefcriptions in every inftance, and ingenuously fhewn us what had an apparently evil or good effect, and what did not finally avail against the difeafe, has left fuch obfervations on his prac ice within the power of all his medical readers, many of whom, he must expect, will judge diverfly of it in fome of the cafes. But perhaps there is no being ftrictly honeft without fome degree of fortitude, fome measure of a philofophical indifference about cenfure, where a man has been confcious of intending perfectly well; and has exercifed his abilities to their utmost. Such a rare perfon, indeed, will be capable of enjoying no mean gratification from a reflexion, that if he fhould have committed any material errors in his profeffion, (which he could never intend to do) that difcovery of them, which his candour has empowered others to make, may terminate in the good of his fpecies. The work confifts of three parts; the firft of which is stiled Epidemics, which Epidemics are to be confidered as occurring to the British army in Flanders, from 1742 to 1748. Hence this part of his performance fhould feem particularly calculated for the perufal of phyficians and furgeons in a camp. He gives three inftances of the flow fever, as he calls that of― 42, of which two were fatal; and he confiders the dampness of their barracks as caufing it, by relaxing their fibres, and stopping perspiration. He afcribes the epidemic fever in the army at Dettingen in 1743, to the greater heat of the fummer in Germany and Flanders than in England. It appeared in December as a remittent, but became continual in January, (for he fuppofes both the fame difcafe) the crifis happened the 6th, 7th, or 8th day by a plentiful bleeding at the nose, or a profuse sweating. This fection directs fome cautionary rules with regard to heat and cold in a camp, which feem prudent and œconomical, fome of them being deduced from plain obfervation and thermometers: it has no particular cate of the difeafe, but contains the general treatment of it. It was confiderably fatal in proportion to the numbers it feized. The remittent at Boifleduc, in 1748, was extremely epidemic, not more than thirty men out of a whole regiment being exempted from it; but the proportion dying was only one in twenty. Dr. Home confiders the humidity of the air, and of the situation, as its original cause. One fection of this first part is employed on the Small-pox, which was epidemic among the British troops quartered in Holland in 1747. Our Author repeatedly tried the purging method in the fecondary fever without fuccefs. He gives an extraordinary inftance, p. 94. of a girl, who, having been deeply pitted with the fmall-pox, caught them again, in a F 3 confluent Confluent degree, by attending one in the difeafe. She had very little spitting, and no fwelling of her hands; but is faid to have had them four times larger than those of two preceding patients who died. She recovered, and is affirmed to have been in no danger. This, fuppofing it to have been the genuine fmall-pox, is very furprifing in moft refpects; and differed greatly in the event from the very general confequence of fuch a degree of the confluent fmall-pox, without a fuitable falivation and tumour; which inclines us to hefitate a little, as to the specific identity of the eruption; though the gentleman feeing it must judge beft of it. Suppofing it truly variolous, it was a moft extraordinary irregularity of the fmall-pox, and feems to hint, that morbid as well as plastic nature may have her lufus, her deviations, however rarely. The remaining fections of this part contain an unfuccessful cafe in a miliary fever; an anatomical and practical confideration of the glanders in horses, and fome remarks on gun-fhot wounds. The fecond part is entitled, Hiftories of Cafes, of which it contains feveral, interfperfed with a few medical remarks, in feventcen fections. They had different events, but the greater number were fatal. A man in a low fever, after bleeding, blifters, and bolus's of caftor, with a camphorated emulfion, took James's powder, which threw him into an universal sweat for fome hours, but did not prevent his dying the fame evening, being the tenth day of the difeafe. The fixteenth fection gives the author's own cafe, which he calls an inflammation of the cortical part of the brain; and as he ftill lives and writes, fuppofing it really fuch, this muft imply the fallibility of Boerhaave's judgment, in fuppofing death the certain and fudden confequence of fuch a difeafe, faying*, Si morbus infiammatorius maturiús petat cerebrum, quis ejus fuppurationem expectabit, nam mors ftatim fequitur. We may fubmit the different fentiments of these two phyficians to the decifions of our medical readers; but it were unjuft, on fuch an occafion, to omit the anatomical evidence which Dr. Home gives, on opening the fcull of a horfe-guard man, who died of a flow fever in 1742, where little obfervable, except a leaden colour on the concave part of the liver, appeared in the abdomen or therex: but finufes were found in each lobe of the brain, full of a green pus, thick in fome places, and thin in others, which had eat its way into the ventricles, and filled them to the quantity of about four ounces. Some matter was likewife obferved in the cerebellum, where the leaft diforder,' he adds, has hitherto been look'd on as mortal,' concluding, it * * Prax. Vol. V. P. 309: • overturns |