must sometimes occur, in which the natural instinct, that is not guided by reason, but merely developed mechanically, operates very improperly and quite the contrary way to what it ought to do, or in which, at least, it fails of completely effecting the object of nature? Every thing in nature has its limits, its deficiencies, and its exceptions: how, then, should the instincts of animals alone be exempt from them? Traces of these deficiencies, and of this perverse application, are but too frequently met with in the animal kingdom. Though most animals follow a natural instinct in the selection of their food, and readily distinguish and reject such substances as are pernicious; still naturalists demonstrate, that they frequently choose the wrong and greedily eat poisonous vegetables which kili them. Many animals cannot distinguish food that has been most manifestly impregnated with poison, from any other; though they immediately recognize those aliments which they need for their subsistence by much less perceptible signs. A horse, which is so dainty in his food, when left to himself cannot resist the inclination to drink when he is overheated, and this error costs him his life. He wounds himself with great stupidity when a sprig of thorn is fastened beneath his tail, by pressing it violently against his haunches; whereas he need but raise it to spare himself the pain. The extreme difficulty, also, of removing a horse from a stable which is on fire, is a well-known fact; and, in consequence of this obstinacy, he is consumed with it. In the rutting season many animals exhaust themselves to such a degree that it is a long time before they recover their strength. In short, it must be admitted that, in many cases, the instincts of Nature precisely counteract their objects, and that nothing is farther from truth than that they are infallible. Man, who in one point of view is an animal, just as every animal is in one point of view a machine, has his appropriate animal appetites, as other animals have theirs. So little difference is there, in this respect, between him and the brutes, that on this side he can claim no superiority over them. For his preservation he has, in common with them all, hunger and thirst, the dread of pain, and concern for his life; he defends himself like them, and like them he propagates his kind. Moralists must testify the ill-success of their lessons, when they tend to bring the actions which men perform by means of their animal instincts under the control of prudence and reason. Such instincts, then, we have also in our diseases; and it is as clear as the sun that they are but consequences of the unusual sensations which we experience in a state of disease. The craving for drink in fever, the impulse to counteract putrefaction of the humours by acids, to alleviate pain by rubbing and chafing the contracted nerves, to perform all sorts of violent motions, &c. are but the effects of feelings according to which the machine changes, and, with its new excitements, aims, as it were, at new objects, of which the soul, however, neither comprehends nor knows any thing. Much as it behoves us to respect these instincts of the sick as the almost immediate impulses of Nature, still we should go too far were we to believe that these instincts, in the human animal at least, were infallible, and ought absolutely to be followed. Far from it!-our appetites, considered by themselves, have the same defects as those of all other animals; and as they are not, any more than the latter, effects of our reason, but mere operations of the animal machine, they are not to be more highly regarded in us than in the brutes. We should drink cold water, when overheated, with the same avidity as the horse, did not reflection or experience forbid us. The instinct of propagation impairs our constitutions much more than those of animals. Our urinary vessels hold a stone that is passing through them as firmly as the stupid lobster holds his leg in his claw; and, to afford relief, the physician must correct this perversion of the maxim,which is so applicable to an infinity of other cases, in order to save us from destruction. It is frequently the case, that, when the stomach is overcharged, we have the same appetite for food as if it were empty, and we should injure our health were we blindly to obey this impulse. Ebn Athir, an Arabian writer, relates, that the Caliph Abdalmelek was attacked by a disease, which, according to the physicians could not fail to prove mortal in case of his drinking any thing. His thirst, however, became so violent, that, unable to endure it any longer, he ordered his son Valid to give him some drink. Valid, who loved his father, would not gratify him in violation of the express prohibition of the physicians. The Caliph then applied to his daughter, Fatime, and Valid still opposed the fulfilment of his wish; when Abdalmelek became angry, and threatened to disinherit his son if he persisted in his disobedience. He was therefore obliged to comply; and no sooner had the Caliph swallowed the fatal draught of water, than he swooned, and shortly afterwards expired. If this example be liable to suspicion, still the natural antipathies in diseases are instincts of nature as well as the appetites; and yet persons in hydrophobia, who have such a horror of water, are tormented with thirst. In short, were it necessary, I could adduce a great number of facts to prove that the instincts of Nature, both in health and disease, are frequently as fallible and as perverse as in the irrational animals. The animal instincts of man lose, moreover, much of their weight with physicians, because reason and sophistry interfere too much in this business of Nature, though it is above their comprehension. There is no end to our refinement upon our appetites, and this renders a matter already sufficiently Why are you wandering here, I pray? She heard him cry, Poppies, 'tis known to all who rove, Grow in fields, and not in the grove. ticklish and intricate, so uncertain, that the instances of men who have benefited themselves by obeying their animal instincts are very rare. It is almost impossible for us to leave these instincts, even if we would, in their natural purity; because, in all our animal actions, and in our very feelings, reason always interferes, and we cannot impose silence on the soul. Hence our patients often deem that an impulse of Nature, which is a mere suggestion of their reason or imagination; and even if they really feel such an impulse, their sophistry does not fail immediately to pervert it. This bungling of the soul in the laboratory of Nature justly renders the animal instincts of man so problematical to physicians, that they are always extremely cautious how they gratify them. Nor does it appear that we shall ever gain a much better insight into this matter than we have yet done; for the instincts of animals are a work out of the most secret cabinet of Nature, into which we never shall penetrate. It is, therefore, my duty to exhort my readers in the most serious manner, neither to give way too confidently to their natural instincts, nor entirely to oppose them. Each of their appetites is a dangerous temptation for them. Nature will not suffer us to keep them in absolute subjection; neither will she bear us harmless if we blindly give ourselves up to their control. Where, in this case, is the middle way? I cannot tell: and if I could, of what benefit would it be? Middle ways are difficult to keep; they are ways upon which neither physicians nor patients are commonly found. (Literary Gaz.) SONG, Tell me again, the old man said, WE HINTS TO JURYMEN. (Blackwood's Mag.) E beg earnestly to solicit the attention of ALL who are likely to be called upon to serve their country in the important character of jurymen, to a work which has lately been published in London, by two professional gentlemen-a physician and a lawyer: both of them men of the most distinguished talents and reputation. The subject is that science which the French writers call "Medicine Legale ;" and which we, who may be said to have borrowed this science from the French, call "Medical Jurisprudence." It has been defined by the present authors, "that science by which medicine, and its collateral branches are made subservient to the construction, elucidation, and administration of the laws; and to the preservation of public health." That part of the science which is described in the last clause of this definition, is in itself of high importance, and gentlemen likely to be summoned as jurymen, in cases where damages are demanded for nuisances, ought to be acquainted with all that Messrs. Paris and Fonblanque have said concerning it. But the other is something of a still higher character. It embraces matters, in the right understanding of which human life itself is every day involved; and we have no hesitation in saying, that he who, now that there is a plain and distinct English treatise upon it (which there never was before), shall wilfully continue in a state of ignorance, and in that state sit as a judge upon the fate of a fellow citizen, is chargeable with the most serious, and most culpable of indiscretions. Take the ordinary case of a trial for murder, by poisoning; and let any one who has ever been present at a scene of the kind, reflect for a moment on what that scene presented. What is more common than to hear three doctors, or soi disant doctors, on the one side, swearing that the defunct was * Medical Jurisprudence. By J. A. Paris, M.D., &c. &c. and J. S. M. Fonblanque, Barrister at Law. 3 vols. 8vo. London 1823. poisoned, and as many brothers of the trade swearing, five minutes afterwards, directly the reverse? And then, how are these conflicting depositions commented upon? Why, by a couple of barristers, who probably cannot speak three sentences on end, on such a question, without satisfying every medical man in the room that they have no ideas about it at all, and are merely quirking it upon the strength of a dozen or two hard words, and long-winded phrases; and then, perhaps, by a judge who, the more earnest in his desire to penetrate into the truth of the case, is only the more pelplexed by the real or apparent contradictions of the evidence which his note-book contains. What can, under such circumstances, be harder than the condition of the juryman? or what less wonderful than that the decisions of juries, upon questions of this kind have, more frequently than any others, excited the astonishment of scientific persons, in reading the printed details of the whole procedure? Suppose a jury of plain men called upon to decide questions of law, in the same way in which they are every day called upon to decide those medical questions. Suppose Dr. and Dr. fighting a furious battle, and quoting against each other the Pandects, Maxwell Morison's Dictionary, and the Acts of Sederunt and Adjournal. Suppose Dr. summing up the arguments pro and con, in a speech of two hours' length; can any body doubt that all this would move much merriment among the lawyers in the gallery-or, if the case were one of serious importance, emotions of a very different nature? And yet, who 'can doubt that Drs. -, and have all, and each, or one or other of them, ere now, listened with equally disrespectful feelings to the medical prose of the first barristers and judges of the country? Were it possible that juries should be summoned to determine points of pure law, no lawyer will hesitate to say, that jurymen ought, all of them, to become lawyers. And we can have no more hesitation about saying, that as juries are every day called upon to determine questions purely medical, chemical, &c. it would be most desirable that jurymen should endeavour to acquire, we do not say the knowledge and skill of professional physicians and chemists, but certainly such an acquaintance with the elements and phraseology of these sciences, as might enable them to attach distinct ideas to the words which they are to hear from the lips of medical and chemical witnesses. It is to the vague, indistinct, and dreamy state of mind produced by the sudden infusion of a great mass of half understood words and facts; it is to this alone that we can refer the gross and flagrant absurdities of certain famous verdicts in cases of poisoning, which will immediately suggest themselves to the mind of any professional person. We are quite satisfied that the thing we have spoken of as desirable, is, to any extent at least, impossible. Nevertheless, every juryman who is in the habit of reading, ought to read Paris and Fonblanque. And certainly, if such reading were to become common, we do not think it could fail to produce most admirable effects, both directly upon the minds of the jurymen themselves, and indirectly upon the minds of those professional persons who have occasion to open their mouths in their presence. And the book has this great merit, that it is a most amusing as well as a most instructive and learned book. We venture to say, that no three volumes containing such a mass of interesting information, delivered in such a clear, unaffected, and engaging style, have appeared for these many years past. It is very true, that the professional student must still make frequent refer ence to Fodoré, whose much more extensive work indeed will probably hold its place for a full century to come. But for all the great ic of England, here is a book per and sufficient in itself-profound and accurate in science-skillful in illustration-and elegant and perspicuous in language. We may add, that though it be the work of two authors of different professions, they have contrived to blend themselves so thoroughly, that we suspect it would be no easy matter either for a lawyer or a physician to say where the one handiwork commences and the other ends, in almost any one section of the three volumes. We have no intention of reviewing Messrs. Paris and Fonblanque in a monthly miscellany such as this. That will be done in the proper scientific journals-but we have been much struck, in going over the work, with the propriety of doing what we can for the extent of its non-professional circulation, and we now do so by throwing together a few extracts relating to subjects, which, we are sure, no reader will consider as uninteresting-or as unsuitable to the unpretending place in which they are to make their appearance. We shall endeavour to select passages of very various character, and, so far as we can judge, containing new facts. The first we shall quote, presents us with the rationale of a very old trial by ordeal among the Hindoos. modern Europe, when the decisions of the "The trials by ordeal in the dark ages of most important questions was abandoned to chance or to fraud, when carrying in the hand a piece of red hot iron, or plunging the arm in boiling water,* was deemed fraudulent experiment, supplanting a righted a test of innocence, and a painful or eous award, might consign to punishment the most innocent, or save from it the most shocking singularity in the institutions of criminal of men, have ever been deemed a our barbarous ancestors. We are ready to admit the justice of this charge generally; and yet we fancy that, upon some occasions, mist of credulity and ignorance, a ray of we are enabled to discern through the dim policy that may have been derived from the dawning of a rude philosophy. Trials by hold a high rank in the institutes of the ordeal, as we are informed by Mr. Mill, than nine different modes of trial, but that Hindoos It appears that there are no less by water in which an idol has been washed, and the one by rice, are those which we shall select as well calculated to illustrate the observations which we shall venture to offer. The first of these trials consists in * Priests were among the earlier chemists, and it ed, either from a conviction of his innocence, or is asserted that they frequently instructed the accusfrom less disinterested motives, in some of those dern jugglers are still erabled to amuse and to asmeans of resisting the action of fire, by which motonish the valgar. obliging the accused person to drink three draughts of the water in which the images of the Sun and other deities have been washed; and if within fourteen days he has any indisposition, his crime is considered as proved. In the other species of ordeal alluded to, the persons suspected of theft are each made to chew a quantity of dried rice, and to throw it upon some leaves or bark of a tree; they, from whose mouth it comes dry, or stained with blood, are deemed guilty, while those who are capable of returning it in a pulpy form, are at once pronounced innocent. When we reflect upon the superstitious state of these people, and at the same time, consider the influence which the mind, under such circumstances, is capable of producing upon the functions of the body, it is impossible not to admit that the ordeals above described are capable of assisting the ends of justice, and of leading to the detection of guilt. The accused, conscious of his own innocence, will fear no ill effects from the magical potations, but will cheerfully acquiesce in the ordeal; whereas the guilty person, from the mere uneasiness and dread of his own mind, will, if narrowly watched, most probably discover some symptoms of bodily indisposition, before the expiration of the period of his probation. In the case of the ordeal by rice, a result, in correspondence with the justice of the case, may be fairly anticipated on the soundest principle of physiology. There is perhaps no secretion that is more immediately influenced by the passions than that of saliva. The sight of a delicious repast to a hungry man is not more effectual in exciting the salivary secretion, than is the operation of fear and anxiety in repressing and suspending it. If the reader be a medical practitioner, we refer him for an illustration to the feelings which he experienced during his examination before the medical colleges; and if he be a barrister, he may remember with what a parched lip he gave utterance to his first address to the jury. Is it then unreasonable to believe that a person under the influence of conscious guilt, will be unable, from the dryness of his mouth, to surrender the rice in that soft state, which an innocent individual, with an undiminished supply of saliva, will so easily accomplish?" M. Fodoré, in his great work, (vol. III. p. 204,) details the horrible case of a poor man at Rheims, who was executed in the course of the last century for the supposed murder of his wife, by stabbing or strangling, and then burning her. She was much addicted to the use of spirituous liquors, and the husband to the last moment persisted in saying that he had entered the house in the evening after his work was done, and found nothing but cinders, and bones, and rags on the floor by the side of his barrel of eau-de-vie. Another story of precisely the same kind is told of one Millet in 1725. Messrs. Paris and Fonblanque do not go into these details of their great master's work, but they agree with him-1st, that it is quite possible for persons to die of what has been called, (though rather inaccurately) spontaneous combustion; and, 2dly, that all those who have so died, have owed their fate to immoderate indulgence in the use of spirits. They abridge from Fodoré in one of their notes the following appalling example it happened in the vicinity of Florence in 1776. "Don Gio Maria "Bertholi having spent the day in travelling about the country, arrived in the evening at the house of his brother-in-law; he immediately requested to be shewn to his destined apartment, where he had a handkerchief placed between his shirt and shoulders, and being left alone, betook himself to his devotions. A few minutes hadscarcely elapsed when an extraordinary noise was heard from the apartment, and the cries of the unfortunate priest were particularly distinguished; the people of the house hastily entering the room, found him extended on the floor, and surrounded by a light flame which receded (a measure) as they approached, and finally vanished. On the following morning, the patient was examined by Mr. Battaglia, who found the integuments of the right arm almost entirely detached and pendant from the flesh; from the shoulders to the thighs the integuments were equally injured; and on the right hand, the part most injured, mortification had already commenced, which notwithstanding immediate scarification rapidly extended itself. The patient complained of burning thirst, by continual vomiting accompanied by fewas horribly convulsed, and was exhausted ver and delirium. On the fourth day, after two hours of comatose insensibility, he expired; during the whole period of his suffering, it was impossible to trace any symptomatic affection. A short time previous to his decease, M. Battaglia observed with astonishment, that putrefaction had dy exhaled an insufferable odour, worms made so much progress that the body alreacrawled from it on the bed, and the nails had become detached from the left hand. "The account given by the unhappy patient was, that he felt a stroke like the the same time blow of a cudgel on the right hand, and at a lambent flame attach itself to rt, which was immediately reduced es, his wristbands at the same time ing utterly untouched. The handkerchief, which as before men tioned, was placed between his shoulders and his shirt, was entire, and free from any |