The advantages to be expected from the prefent project are comprized in pages 3 and 4 which, for the information of the public, and in juftice to the author, we extract:

Among the various fubjects evidently defigned by Providence to afk amendment at the hands of men, there is one of immenfe importance, which has not yet received it in the degree it is capable of, and that is WATER.

This element, neceffarily of fuch univerfal ufe, and particularly in food and medicine, is fuffered to remain laden with a great diverfity of impurities, and is taken into the ftomach, by the majority of mankind, without the leaft hefitation, not only in its fluid ftate, however turbid it may happen to be; but also in the forms of bread, paftry, foups, tea, medicines, and innumerable other particulars.

Medical gentlemen can readily point out the probable advantages towards the prefervation of health, and extending the period of human life, which would refult from the ufe of foft water, cleared from the earthy, and the living, dead, and putrid, animal, and vegetable substances, with which it is always, more or lefs, defiled and vitiated.

But independent of this confideration refpecting health, an intimation of this nature must be not a little alarming to delicacy; and moft certainly had better have been entirely fuppreffed, if adequate means had not, at the fame moment, been offered to quiet fuch alarms. Such means, however, fimple in their nature, and easy in their procefs, are pointed out, in the following pages, with demonftrative evidence; whereby pure foft water may be had at all times, and in any quantity, as clear and brilliant as that from the fineft fprings.

Many are fenfible of the indelicacies of turbid foft water; and are thence driven to the use of hard water, although they are not unapprized of the probable danger to their health, from its petrifying quality, or from the metallic, or other mineral, taints, too frequently fufpended and concealed therein.

Others of nephritic or gouty habits, juftly dreading the petrifying effects of spring waters, clarify their foft water, by paffing it through what are called filtering ftones; these, if natural, are supposed to be a kind of pumice or calx, the produce of fome volcano, and may contain copper, or other metallic, or mineral fubftances, diffoluble by water, and may therefore render the perfect falubrity of water, paffed through fuch bodies, fomewhat fufpicious.

• The other kind of filtering flones are artificial productions, faid to be formed of a fort of clay, with which is mixed fome particles of a combustible nature, which diminish in bulk in the fire, and thereby render the mafs porous. The ingenious Mr. Wedgwood informed the writer hereof that he had caused fome of this kind to be made, but that their effects were so trifling, and temporary, that he did not think proper to continue the manufacture of them.

Neither of these kind of filters will afford clear water in any confiderable quantity, and notwithstanding the repeated brushing and

cleanfing

cleanfing applied to the furfaces of their concavities, the pores, be. yond the reach of the brush, will, fooner or later, clog up; and the ftones become entirely ufelefs; this is fo extremely evident, that it would be infulting to common fenfe and experience to attempt a formal proof of it, and, perhaps, fomething worse than infult, to deny it.'

The petrifying quality of hard water no philofopher, we believe, now regards as connected with the origin of nephritic complaints. That the ordinary impurities of fweet foft water are prejudicial to health has never, as far as we know, been demonftrated, nor rendered probable: perhaps the extractive matter which it contains is not more unwholesome than the extractive matter of broth, beer, or porter; and putrefcent is very different from putrid water. We fhall, not deny that the effect of Mr. P.'s process is highly defirable in point of delicacy; and on this fcore we with him fuccefs, because he appears to deferve it but we need not at any time apologize for expofing what we take to be mistakes or gratuitous fuppofitions; in the prefent cafe, we confider it as humane to prevent, as far as our influence extends, a falfe alarm on account of their health from fpreading among the drinkers of unfiltered water.

Mr. P. recommends afhen veffels for containing water but he affigns no fufficient reafon for the preference. Veffels of feveral other fo ts of wood, with the internal furface charred will keep water juft as fweet.-Mr. P. fays that he has been afked if his percolator will fweeten putrid water, but he is not, he fays, yet qualified to refolve that question. We conjecture that, as it has been hitherto adjusted, he might answer in the negative, for he feems not to have heard of the purifying quality of charcoal; of which, we apprehend, he might take advantage. We rather wonder that Mr. Peacock did not think of fubmitting his MS. to the infpection of fome person acquainted with recent philofophical difcoveries. A very little of this kind of knowlege might have freed it from the unauthorized affertions which it contains.

Mr. P. does not here give the compofition of his ftratified filtre; thinking it prudent to reserve abfolutely and pofitively to himself the preparation and placing of the filtering mediums, either under his own immediate inspection, or that of such perfon or perfons in his fervice, in whom he can place full confidence.' It feems probable that these mediums confift of earthy fubftances, or of glass reduced to different degrees of fineness.

ART.

ART. XVII. An Inquiry into the Medical Efficacy of a new Species of Peruvian Bark, lately imported into this Country under the Name of Yellow Bark: including practical Obfervations refpecting the Choice of Bark in general. By John Relph, M. D. Phyfician to Guy's Hospital. 8vo. pp. 177. 3s. Boards. Phillips, &c. 1794

THOUGH an attentive obferver of fashions in medicine will

be difpofed to liften with prudent fcepticifm to the praises of any new article of materia medica; yet, as there is no reafon to doubt that the ftores of nature contain many substances of great efficacy in the cure of difeafes, with which we are at prefent unacquainted," every liberal well-wisher to the improvement of the art will beftow a candid attention on all fuch attempts to open thefe ftores, as are fupported by refpectable authority. Notwithstanding, therefore, that there may appear Something whimfical in the fhifting eftimate of that capital drug, Peruvian Bark, from pale to red, and from red to yellow, yet, if the latter colour be really found to difcriminate a fpecies of fuperior value, we are obliged to the diligent inquirer who afcertains and points out the circumftance.

The writer of the prefent work introduces his account of the yellow bark by a compilation (perhaps more prolix than was neceffary,) of what is found in different authors, respecting the different fpecies and varieties of the Quinquina; in all which he difcovers no traces of the kind in question, except in the account given by Murray, in his Apparatus Medicam. Vol. VI. of what he terms Cortex China regius, feu flavus. appears to be, in fact, the fame with the yellow bark lately introduced into this country, and which Dr. R. thus defcribes :

This

This Bark, though denominated yellow, is only to be understood as approaching nearer to that colour, than any other species of Peruvian Bark, imported into this country, especially when reduced to powder. It confifts of flattish irregular pieces, of a cinnamon colour, inclining to red, and having in certain directions of the light, a peculiar fparkling appearance on the furface. They are very generally divested of the cuticle, of a fibrous texture, dry, and rigid to the feel, and easily rubbed into powder between the fingers and thumb; neither remarkably weighty nor the contrary. They have little odour, but to the taste manifeft intense bitterness, with a moderate share of aftringency, together with a certain flavour correfponding unequivocally to thofe of the Cinchona officinalis. The external furface of this bark, is of a somewhat deeper colour than that of the internal, and in fome fpecimens it is as deep as that of the red Bark. The pieces vary much in fize; fome are about two inches and a half in length, an inch in breadth, and the fixth of an inch in thickness ; while others are ftill fmaller, and fome are to be found from twelve

to

to eighteen inches in length, with the breadth and thickness in proportion. I have alfo feen whole cheits of this bark, the pieces of which were nearly cylindrical, and as completely covered with outer coat, as the most perfect fpecimens of common Bark. The epidermis of the large pieces of the yellow Bark, is of a reddish brown colour, rough, and of a fomewhat fpongy texture; but that of the smaller pieces is of a grey colour, harder, and much more compact.'

We have no certain information in what part of Spanish America the species of Cinchona, producing this bark, grows: but there is reason to imagine that it is in the interior regions, at a great distance from Lima; and therefore its price muft always be greater than that of the common forts.

A curious and interefting part of the present work is taken up with a pharmaceutical examination of this article, communicated by Mr. Babington of Guy's Hospital, well known as an accurate chemift. By all the trials with different menftrua, the bitterness of the yellow bark appeared to be much more intense than that of the other kinds, and of fo fixed a nature as fcarcely to be exhaustible by watery liquors. Its aftringency, likewise, was fuperior to that of the others: but its flavour was lefs; and Mr. B. is difpofed to concur in an opinion of Dr. Smith, that the odour of Peruvian Bark is little connected with its active qualities, and probably refides in the moffy vegetation with which it is ufually covered, or in the epidermis, rather than in the interior and efficacious parts. The watery extract of the yellow Bark was fomewhat more copious than that of the red, and greatly more so than that of the common fort.

The refinous extract of the yellow bark was in much larger proportion than that of the two others.

These chemical tests of its fuperiority are confirmed by the proofs of its fuperior medical virtue, attefted by Dr. Relph, by his colleagues at the hofpital, and by various correfpondents.

With respect to the obfervations made by the author as to the modes of exhibiting it, and to the cafes in which it is proper, we think it unneceflary for us to enter into particulars. It feems enough to say that wherever and in whatever manner the red or common bark is given, the yellow bark may be substituted with a chance of greater efficacy. It remains, if poffible, to fecure a regular fupply of this drug, in its genuine and perfect ftate, that it may not, by adulterations and fophiftications, lofe that character to which it feems juftly entitled; which appears, in a great measure, to have been the cafe with the fo much extolled red bark.

ART.

ARR. XVIII. A Phyfiological, Theoretic, and Practical Treatife on the Utility of the Science of Mufcular Action, for reftoring the Power of the Limbs. By John Pugh, Anatomift. Small fol. pp. 132. fifteen Plates. 21. 2s. Boards. Dilly. 1794.

OF

F all the branches of medicine, that termed by the antients the gymnaftic has made the leaft progrefs. From an idea either of its rules being too obvious, or its effets too trivial, it has formed a very small part of modern plans of cure for diforders either general or local. Yet a fcientific confideration of the nature and effects of muscular action would feem to suggest the probability of its being rendered an inftrument of no fmail efficacy, in the treatment of certain diforders; and, in particular, for remedying the loft or depraved motion of the limbs, we should naturally be led to make use of the action of those organs on which their motion depends.

The work before us is an attempt to call the public attention to this fubject: but it is one, the nature and purpose of which are not eafily characterised. As an ingenious mechanist, and a practical anatomift, we are readily difpofed to give Mr. Pugh credit for certain contrivances, by which local action may be advantageously applied to cafes of impaired motion; and the prefixed atteftations of fome men of eminence to the merit of his apparatus and inventions, together with the fubjoined cafes, regularly attefted, of actual benefit received from their use, are to us fufficient evidences that his plan deferves attention and encouragement: but when, in order to obtain confequence as an author, he ftrings together a felection of extracts from well known writers, and details common and hackneyed opinions, we cannot but regard him as the " futor ultra crepidam." "Again; a fet of plates, profeffedly given for illuftration, feem oddly introduced by the obfervation that, if ignorant perfons attempt to relieve themselves by imitating the poftures here expreffed, they are more likely to do themselves harm than good. Thefe are too like the artifices of empirics; and we are forry to see them accompany a work which, in one part of its execution, is highly refpectable :-for, if it be confidered as a fet of plates of mufcular action, for the inftruction of the anatomical ftudent, and still more of the artift, their extraordinary beauty and elegance cannot but command admiration. The fubject of each plate is a particular limb, or part of the body, thrown into a forced attitude, expreffive either of the cause of fome defect in motion, or of the proper method of curing it by counteraction. A brief general account of the purpose of each plate precedes ; and an anatomical explanation, with references to an outline figure, accompanies them, in which every mufcle is marked as