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notice the unuecessary length of the chap-ters on diseases and injuries of the orbit andsoft parts around it (these belong rather togeneral surgery, and are almost out of placein a work exclusively dedicated to the dis-eases of the eye); the repetition of the samesubject in the two sections own 11 naevus ma-ternus," and on " orbital aneurism by anas-tomosis ;" and lastly, the denial of the occur.rence of intermittent ophthalmia, two verymarked cases of which have been been de-scribed in German journals, and are givenin Nos. 290 and 330 ofTnE LANCET.These are,’ however, of comparatively

little consequence, and we can most stronglyrecommend the work to the attention of ourreaders.

SINGULAR MALFORMATION OF TIIE RYES.

IN a late number of Schweigger’s Journalwe find a report by Professor Marx at TIruns-1 Iwick, on a girl about 2l years of age, in Iwhose eyes the lens is situated immediately Ibehind the cornea ; the iris is closed, but isvery thin, and is pushed backwards so as tobe almost funnel-shaped. Hoth lens and

iris are completely transparent, so that thechoroid may be seen through them. Theindividual could see very well until latelyexcept in a very strong light; and it wasonly when the lens in the right eye beganto become opaque, and she applied for sur-gical aid, that the singular position of thelens was discovered. In the left eye there

seems also a cataract to be forming. The

eyelids are remarkably thin and wrinkled,and appear almost to indicate a tendency ofnature to compensate in some degree theabsence of the natural function of the iris.

METALLIC MIXTURE FOR INJECTING ANA-

TOMICAL PREPARATIONS.

A GERMAN Journal recommends for this

purpose an alloy consisting of177 parts of weight of tin310................lead101,26 ............quicksilver

’

497................bismuth,which might accordingly be considered as acompound of three atoms of tin, three atomsof lead, seven atoms of bismuth, and oneatom of quicksilver. The best method of

preparation consists in slowly heating the

bismuth, tin, and lead, with a little powder-ed charcoal until the mass comes into fusion ;it is then removed from the fire, and the

quicksilver gradually added after havingbeen previously heated. The mixture hasthe brightness of silver, is perfectly fluid at1T3 deg., and becomes solid at 140 deg.

SKETCHES

OF THE

MEDICAL SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND.

No. XXVIII.

DR. GRAI3AM.

WE are apprehensive of committing abreach of pictorial propriety in attemptingthe likeness of a botanist at this unconge-nial season of the year, when Flora scarcelyaffords a flower to fill up the back ground of

I the canvass. But as Dr. Graham, indifferentto the indications of the thermometer, hasset us the example of treating botanical sub-jects in winter, by the delivery of a courseof lectures, we shall imitate his laudable in-novation, though the ink were to congeal asit fiowed irom our pen, and we producedsomething as misshapen as an iceberg, in-stead of an exact similitude of the dasliing,handsome, and highly intelligent Professorwho presides over botany in the Universityof Edinburgh. We give this early intima-tion of the general character of the objectof the present sketch, lest it might be sup-posed we were about to exhibit the portraitof a venerable old swain, with silver locks,buckles in his shoes, a pea-green vest, anda glass dangling from his neck ; of one, inshort, of those teachers of the by-goneschool of botany whose attributes pointedthem out as a sort of personification of theEpicene gender, or, like the themes of theirown meditations, an amalgamation of bothsexes in the same individual. With such

respectable old ladies, as if unsexed by theserenity of their pursuits and the indolenceof their habits, Dr. Graham holds no qua-lifications in common. Between Dr. Gra-ham and the associations which the tuitionof botany is too apt to excite in the recol-lections of most medical men, there is a

most felicitous discrepancy indeed, thescience being considered by them as trivialin its objects, and an unnecessary additionto the knowledge of a practical physician,an opinion which the habits of those bywhom it was taught but tended little tooverturn. Active however in manner, acutein his perceptions, complehensive in his

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research, and painstaking in the communi- whose fame has passed away"! The grosscation of instruction, you are constantly ignorance, and we must say insolence, evinc.startled into wonder, during one of Dr. Gra- ed in this passage, need no comment, norham’s lively prelections, how an individual the sexual system" of Linnaeus a defenceof such buoyancy of manner-how one, the at our hands-a system which will live as

decision of whose character, and rapidity of long as science itself shall be cultivated; inwhose movements, point him out as fitter fact, it is the only one adapted to the bota-for the extirpation of disease than for bend- nical pupil in his first steps in the science,ing in patient scrutiny over the evolving as it is, after all, the only one by which themiracles of the microscope, should have be- name, at least, of plants can be readily re-come the investigator of the delicate and cognised in the field. We have repeatedlycomplicated organization of the vegetable seen the experiment of two students, theworld. It is difficult, indeed, to reconcile one taking Mr. Hoolcer’s Flora, the otber thethe apparently contradictory attributes of Synopsis by Mr. Lindley; and in nine caseshis character, or to concentrate into one out of ten, the student making use of theview the multifarious qualifications evinced latter could not recognise a single plant, orby him in the discharge of his various offi- arrive at its name, by its assistance, whilecial duties, whether as a teacher of botany, the pupil following the Linnsean system,a clinical lecturer, or a practical physician, adopted in Mr. Hooker’s work, made outLike many others called to fill important every plant that presented itself to his view.situations without time to prepare a regular In his use of this admirable system, Dr.digest of the science which they taught, out Graham takes the greatest pains ; the ordersof a systematic course of study, Dr. Graham in Smith’s Compendium are goue over byhas laboured, and not unsuccessfully, to him during the course, and specimens incompensate for a deficiency in early educa- illustration of the genera and species be-tion. Aware of the connexion existin be- longing to each abundantly supplied andtween the different branches of medical luminously explained. In addition to thesescience, he has endeavoured to grapple with minute notices of each plant, Dr. Grahamthem all, and if he has not attained his ob- holds daily examinations in a given portionjects fully to the extent of those who make of each of the orders, and what rarely in-each department of the heating art a sepa- deed occurs on such occasions, not onlyrate subject of cultivation, he has at least renders them highly instructive, but evencarried along with him, in his hurried career agreeable to the class, by the affability andover this extensive field of study, a suffi- elegance of manner with which lie pro-ciency of its fruits and flowers to furnish at pounds his questions to his pupils, who areonce a substantial and agreeable bouquet for seldom disposed to bear this speeies of ca.his pupils in botany. Principally occupied techetical scrutiny in public with a goodin didactic pursuits, he is necessarily better grace. The style in which his lectures areknown as a teacher than a writer on botany; composed is at least as peculiar as the mat-but what he looses in fame is amply made ter of them is instructive, being as puncti-up in utility to his class by the excellence liously elaborated as an Oxford prize-essay,of his lectures. His facts in,illustration of or a Christmas declamation at one of ourhis positions are in general happily selected, great schools. There is, perhaps, too muchand his reasoning founded on them, the pro- straining in them after effect, a fault, how-ductions of vigorous and independent mind, ever, which may be the more readily over-which brooks no authority but that which it looked when the illiteracy and negligencecan thoroughly understand. Excellent, how- displayed in the compositions of many ofever, as are those speculations on the higher the professors of the present day are recol-departments of the science with which he lected. Though philosophy and science dis-enlivens his course, it is in the less ambi- dain the meretricious aid of rhetorical em-tious,but not less useful departments of prac- bellishment, even truth itself may be de.tical botany that his merits are most conspi- graded by the dress in which it is presentedcuous. In estimating the comparative value to our understandings; and though Dr. Gra-of the various systems or methods of bota- ham’s phraseology may be, on certain occa-nical arrangement, he has, we think, judi- sions, too florid, his sentiments too witty,ciously adhered to that of Linnaeus, and and his periods too. pointedly antithetical,made it the basis of his lectures, notwith- we would prefer the excels of his merits tostanding the unfounded imputations cast on the poverty of phrase of other lectureis.it by recent writers, particularly by Mr. He has obviously a passion. (for such we mayLindly, of London, who facetiously informs call it) for literary displays of this descrip.us, in the preface to his Natural Classifica- tion, and never, when the subject admits oftion of British Plants, that " it has almost the effort, neglects treating his pupils to onedisappeared from every country but our of those sublime speculations on the moreown, and ought now to find no other place abstruse questions involved in the cultiva-in science than among the records of things tion- of botany ; such, for example, ate his

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essays on generation, the ultimate structure without number. Free by long attendanceof matter, his defence of the Linnaean sys- and purchase to the different courses in thetem, and though last not least, his criticisms " curriculum," the Doctor is seldom or

on the writings of Mr. Andrew Knight. never absent from the class-rooms of theIn these studied lucubtations he puts forth University. As the bell tolls the hours forhis whole strength, and if to the practised lecture, he may be daily seen hurryingwriter they appear somewhat over-done, it down Nicholaon Street to the College, withmust be allowed that they are admirably a bundle of note-books or portfolios undercalculated to enliven the tedium of a long his arm, his aged and withering form en-course of lectures, and to keep alive the veloped in a suit of seedy black ; and ifattention of a class, which soon fails if not the day should demand its protection, a

stimulated occasionally by such exhibitions. ! plaid-mantle girded round his waist, which,If Dr. Graham did not succeed in rendering from the fading tints of its texture, mightthe delivery of his prelections agreeable, he have served some hardy highlander on thewould be certainly without an apology, hav- plain of Bannockburn, or wrapped the ath-ing every physical essential of oratory, a letic form of Rob Roy himself. Either theclear intelligent eye, a forehead of unruffled Doctor has by this time appropriated what-placidity, a loud yet harmonious voice, ard ever knowledge is to be acquired fromfeatures of such expressiveness and manly university professors, or admonished by abeauty as to interest the most phlegmatic series of fruitless attempts to acquire a

auditor or contemner of external appear- legal right to a title which is now con-

ances. With such natural advantages, the ceded him only through the complaisancedelivery of eloquence becomes a matter of of his numerous acquaintances, he has

facility, a fact of which Dr. Graham alone given up apparently all idea of profit-appears to be unconscious, and which casts ing by their valuable instructions, his timean additional charm over his manner in the in the lecture.room being exclusively occu-public perusal of his lectures. Seldom, pied in transferring the physiognomy, in-

indeed, has a professor’s chair been filled by stead of the words of the lecturer, to one ofone of higher personal endowments, and his portable sketch-books, in which are de-habited in his official robe, he looks, during posited innumerable likenesses of all thethe enunciation of one of his favourite pas- Edinburgh professors for perhaps the last

sages, as if inviting the artist to transfer him half century. In short, the Doctor has re-to the canvass as the beau ideal of a professor linquished the pursuits of physic for theof botany. A "stage player," or a " reader practice of the painter, and devotes hisof Shakspeare," might indeed take umbrage whole time to pencil, or pen and ink,at the oftentimes unvaried emphasis with sketches of the professors of Edinburgh,which he declaims common-places; but as which it must be admitted he executes withthese are of importance to the student, as a masterly fidelity to the originals. It

they are to be impressed on the memory, might be supposed that one so devoted toand not merely to please the ear, the energy his adopted art, and of such extremely in-of action and elevation of voice with which offensive manners as the Doctor undoubt-he enunciates his discourses, are at least edly is, would pursue his harmless avoca-judiciously employed tokeepup the attention tions in the lecture-room, without inter-of the audience, though they may not be al- ruption to the pupil and the professor. It

ways regulated by the principles of good taste. is however almost impossible, for the mostThough generally affable, good-humoured, zealous student in the acquisition of know-and sprightly in the discharge of his duties, ledge, or for the most abstracted lecturer inthere are occasions when these customary the discharge of his duties, not to have hisand amiable qualifications give way to tem- attention distracted by the grotesque ap-porary irritation. Dr. Graham having a great pearance of the Doctor, as he sits under thehorror of interruption, and of " sketching" glare of a gas-chandelier, with his sketch-likenesses during the delivery of his lecture, book spread out before him, his spectaclesis ’sometimes ruffled into passion, not by imbedded in his grisly and bushy brows,the pencil of " Scotus," but by that of a and his pencil sending its industrious hummuch more celebrated artist, the well-known around the class-room, as he plies it withDr. Syntax of Edinburgh. The Doctor (we, indefatigable perseverance over a slip ofof course, mean Syntax) is so singular a per- 11 Bristol Board." Apart from tle dis-

sonage, that we are induced to turn his own traction which so attractive an object mustart against himself, and transfer him to our necessarily create in the mind of a speakerpages. For aught we know, but from his engaged in serious avocations, we haveappearance, the Doctor may have been a some suspicion that Dr. Graham may becontemporary of Cullen’s, and has had the jealous of the divided attention of the pu-rare merit of continuing a student all the pils, who are as much occupied occasionallytime, in despite of lectures and examina- with the labours of Syntax, as with his owntions which he has heard and undergone philosophic speculations. His eye, at last,

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will be seen to turn on poor Syntax, hisbrow to lour; and his voice to roughen inthe delivery of the most important partsperhaps of his discourse ; but true to hisfavourite pursuits, the Doctor mistakingthe rebuke for a new expression in the fea-tures of his subject, stares more earnestlyat Dr. Graham, until worn out of patienceby the gaze of the painter, he exclaims ina paroxysm of indignation, " Have done,sir, I do not like to be caricatured, it is

disagreeable to my feelings, and injuriousto the interests of the class!" The ex-

treme pains, indeed, which Dr. Grahamtakes with the instruction of his class,would justify the expression of the disap-probation manifested on those occasionsagainst any interruption of his labours,while the punctiliousness with which heinsists on at least an acquaintance with the !

principles of botany from the graduates ofthe University of Edinburgh, suggests thepropriety of examining the question, whe-ther botany should be bona fide an item inthe curriculum of the education of pLysi-cians. There is nothing indeed more corn-

mon, than to hear pupils complain of thelabour of preparing for an examination in ascience which they hold to be totally use-less in the practice of their profession. Noris this complaint confined to students ; thecui bono of a knowledge of botany, beinga common interrogation among persons reomoved beyond the labour of its acquisition,and exempt from the inconvenience whichan ignorance of it might produce at an

examination. It is certainly much easierto ask them to point out the precise valueof any one of the medical sciences, particu-larly when the rractice of them is as oftenempirical as it is scientific. It might, forexample, be readily asked, Of what use is

chemistry or anatomy in the treatment ofcertain diseases? An analysis of "blue pill,"or a knowledge of the structure and rela-tions of the liver, throws no light whateveron the operation of this drug on that viscus.But are chemistry and anatomy to be repu-diated from the " curricula" of public in-struction, on the strength of this and otherisolated facts ? Surely not ; but it wouldbe as disingenuous to answer, as it is to askthe question in this abstract manner. Nodoubt Linnaeus himself might make a verysorry practitioner at the bed-side of a pa-tient ; but we hold that no practitioner canbe thoroughly cognizant of the nature of theagents which he employs in the practice ofhis profession, without a knowledge of

botany, which has been too long consideredas a mere science of hard names without

meaning, among the medical men of GreatBritain. Besides its use in the cultivationof medicine, the improvement which it be-stows on the mind by the views which it

opens to the industrious student, a know.ledge of it is indispensable to the accom-

plished physiologist, who can never tlio.

roughly understand the laws of animal,without a corresponding acquaintance withthose which regulate vegetable life and

organization.SCOTUS.

ST. THOMAS’S HOSPITAL.

CLINICAL LECTUREDELIVERED BY

DR. ELLIOTSON,

Nov. 15, 1830.

VARIOTJS CASES.

THERE were fourteen cases, Gentlemen,admitted into my wards last Thursday.Among the women were two cases of lepra,which were evidently syphilitic, from theleprous spots being in fact tubercles, andfrom being very dark. I observed like-wise in one of the patients an ulcer of thethroat, and in the other an ulcer of the

tongue. Both women of course deniedhav-ing had a syplilitic affection, and having-been in the way of contamination. But Iam satisfied that you will see the two casescured speedily by mercury. There was

likewise a case of eczema, one of auasarca,and one which appeared to be merely dy-spepsia, for there was no organic diseasenor gastritis.

Spasmodic Contraction of the Hand andFoot.—There was also a very curious case ofconstant spasmodic contraction of the leftfoot and hand ; the foot is drawn greatlyinwards, so that it cannot be straightened atall, and the hand is likewise drawn in, butin an inferior degree. This is exactly theappearance which we observe sometimes incontinued fever, and it occasionally remainsduring the whole of life. You are awarethat a state like this arises from no fault mthe arm or leg itself, but in the nerves attheir union with the brain or marrow, ex.

actly as in hemiplegia, the difference betweenthe two being, that in hemiplegia there is aloss of power, but here an excessive irrita-tion, of the nerves, or brain or marrow, attheir union with the brain or marrow. It isnot merely that the nerves of motion arealone affected here, the motor nerves offlexion only, the motor nerves of extensionbeing undisturbed. Upon making inquiry, Isoon found that there were symptoms in thehead and neck. The back of the head andthe back of the neck immediately underit were exceedingly painful, and on mak.