246 AVERILL’S OPERATIVE SURGERY.

object, has arisen from their knowledge ofthe difficulties imposed upon young men, bythe increase of expense necessarily attend-ing it ; and they have carefully avoided add-ing any thing to this expense, except whatmay be absolutely required to obtain theimproved education. In proof of this theymay mention, that no addition has beenmade for nearly a century, to the fee re-quired in obtaining a diploma (whichamounts to 6l. 5s.); so that were the pro-posed stamp-duty imposed, the expense ofobtaining this certificate, already it is be-lieved as large as those applying for it canafford, would be nearly trebled.In these circumstances, this tax could not

fail to be most oppressive to those applyingfor surgical diplomas.Your petitioners have also to represent,

that a diploma in surgery, although at pre-sent generally taken by those educated atthe different medical and surgical schools, isa mere certificate of qualification, not con-ferring any privilege, and is not required bylaw to be possessed by those who practisesurgery or medicine in the greater part ofthe United Kingdom. In these circum-stances, there seems great reason to fear,that the increased expense will absolutelyprevent a large proportion of medical andsureica.1 students from taking a diploma, andthey will thus be deprived of the motive togo through the full course of education whichthey at present follow. In this way the in-terests of the community will be materiallyinjured by the diminution of the number- ofproperly-qualified practitioners, and by theincrease of the already-too-great number ofthe ill-educated and irregular ; and theefforts which have been made, and are nowmaking, to improve the education of sur-geons, will be materially counteracted andimpeded.

In the opinion of your petitioners, the

proposed duty will operate as a tax for theprevention of the improvement and properqualification of practitioners.Your petitioners conceive, that even were

the number of diolomas annuallv Lyrantedmaintained at its present late, the amountof the tax would be of little importance tothe revenue; and they are satisfied, that thediminution which it is likely to occasion,would render it even less productive than isanticipated.

Your petitioners also strongly feel, thatthe proposed tax, by lessening the numberof diplomas, would materially diminish theirfunds, which they have hitherto applied inpromoting medical and surgical science, bythe purchase and formation of extensive andvaluable collections of anatomical and pa-thological preparations, and would involvethem in great difficulties in the completionof the undertaking they have entered upon,

of building suitable accommodation for ren.dering these preparations useful to the medi-cal and surgical school of Edinburgh-awork which they will not be able to com.

plete, even by the expenditure of theirwhole present funds, and which they com-menced in the belief of the continuance oftheir present annual income.Your petitioners therefore earnestly hope,

that your honourable House will take theabove statement into your serious considera.tion, and that you may be induced to abstainfrom sanctioning a measure, which will not,in their opinion, produce any good effect, andwhich they cannot but regard, for the rea.sons they have stated, as very oppressiveto those engaged in the study of medicineand surgery-as detrimental to the improve-ment of medical and surgical education, andtherefore injurious to the community-andas prejudicial to the interests of your pe-titioners.

May it therefore please your honour-able House to take the above state-ment into consideration ; and to grantyour petitioners such relief it) the

premises as to your honourable Housebhall seem meet."

A short Treatise on Operative Surgery,designed as a Manual for the use of Stu-dents in operating on the Dead Body.By CHARLES AVERILL, Surgeon to the

Cheltenham Casualty Hospital, &c. 3rd.

edition. London : Jackson. 1830. 8vo.

pp. 294.

A short Treatise on Operative Surgery,.

designed as a Manual for the use of Stu.dents in operating on the Dead Body.By CHARLES AVERILL, Surgeon to the

Cheltenham Casualty Hospital, &c. 3rd.

edition. London : Jackson. 1830. 8vo.

pp. 294.

As we had not noticed either of the twoformer editions of this book, we have beeninduced to examine the present one with

much attention, and regret to state that the

work, though not altogether undeserving ofthe success it has experienced is by nomeans, for a third edition, so complete or soperfect as it ought to have been. Be.

sides " the operations which are requisitefor the cure of strangulated hernia, for hy-drocele, for diseases of the eye, for contrac-tions of the oesophagus, rectum, and urethra,for nasal polypus, and. many others,"

which the author states in his introductionthat he has omitted as they cannot in

’ general be practised on the dead body," hehas also passed over the operations for form-ing a new nose and lip, of opening the an-

t-rumi of recision of the uvula, tonsils, and

r extirpation af the uterus, all of which may, be performed upon the dead subject; while,

247

on the other hand, lIe has given descriptionsof some operations which can only be per-formed on the diseased living subject, as theremoval of loose cartilages from the knee-

joint, &c.; and of others which are never

likely to be again performed, as the excisionof the knee-joint, and of amputation at theelbow, for instance. Notwithstanding thetitle also, and the statement in the introduc-tion, a large proportion of’ the operations aredescribed in reference to the living bodyalone, and a number of points noticed andcases given, which, however valuable in

themselves, cannot be of the smallest use to Ithe student in the dissecting room. Thedirections are, for the most part, clear and

eimple, in a few instances, however, as fortying the radial artery near its origin, forlithotomy in the female, according to Lis-franc’s method, &c., they would scarcely beintelligible to the uninstructed student : and,occasionally, terms are employed which arenot in use in this country, as carotis facialisfor facial artery, large crural, for posteriortibial nerve, &c. Notwithstanding these

defects by the author, we believe all the

operations described, are the most eligi-ble, or at least the most usually practis-ed, with the exception of that for tying theinnominata, and we are convinced that in

the living subject it would be next to im-

possihle to pass a ligature round the arteryat the bottom of such a deep and narrowbole as would be made by the operationwhich the writer relates, not to mention

the great risk of wounding the vein, thedifficulty of avoiding which, must be, underany circumstances, the most embarrassingpart of the operation.

It may appear beneath the province ofcriticism to notice typographical errors, yetwe cannot omit to mention as extraordinary negligence, in a third edition, the fact ofthere bemg nearly twenty, besides those

which are corrected in the table of errata.

We have been thus particular in pointingout the errors and defects of this work, be-cause it has been unusually and indiscrimi-nately praised by the venal portion of themedical press, and we trust that the authorwill so far receive our reproof in good part,that if a fourth edition should be called for,he will take cate to render his little bookas correct and instructive as possible.

An Introduction to Systemaiical and Phy-siological Botany, illustrated with Ex-planatory Engravings. By THOMAS

CASTLE, F.L.S., M.R.C.S. London. Cox.: 1829. 12mo. pp. 285.

An Introduction to Medical Botany, Sre.By THOMAS CASTLE,&c. London. Cox.18’28. 12mo. pp. 172.

OF all the wretched compilations, whichhhas been our unpleasant task to review, thetwo now before us are, perhaps, the veryworst-the most completely useless. It wasno unnecessary precaution, therefore, on thepart of the author, to secure a long list ofsubscribers to the first of them, since no one,we imagine, would think of purchasing awork, which, in addition to its numerous

faults, both of commission and omission, isscarcely more compendious, or less expen-sive, than the very fat superior volumes ofSmith on the same subject. As to the

latter, it is little more than a copy of a partof the former, and can, therefore, require noparticular notice. Indeed, it must be evi-

dent, a priori, that such a work, howeverwell written, is necessarily superfluous,since medical botany must be studied in thesame manner, and on the same pr;nciples,as general botany, and an introduction to

the one is equally an introduction to the

other.

We shall, therefore, only speak of the" Introduction to Systematical Botany."The first part of this, or the history of

the science, is remarkable only for its ab.

surdity, and the ignorance which it dis-

plays. We need only give one specimenof each quality. The author divides the

early history of botany into four stages." That the first stage," says he, " corre-

sponded to the time of Adam, is very evi-dent ; the second stage to the days of Cain,who isrepresented asa’ ’tiller of the ground ;’the third stage, to the period (A. C. 2349.)in which we find Noah represented as ’ a a

husbandman, having planted a vineyard anddrank of the wine ;’ and the last stage,tothe time in which we find the lsliniaelitesremarked, as ’trafficking in spicerv, andbalm, and myrrh, which they curried downfrom Gilead to Egypt in the days of Jo.

seph.", The absurdity of this statement is tooevident to require observation; and the samemay be said of the ignorance which places’

243

If aller and J ussiell " among the eminentmen who have devoted themselves to the

subject of plants since the time ofLinnseus,"or which maintains that " the only systemwhich has appeared, since the introductionof the Linnaaan system, requiring our no-tice, is one in which that learned botanist

Jussieu, has immortalized his name, by anattempt to arrange all plants in a naturalorder.’‘As the description of the component parts

of plants, the nomenclature of botany, andthe account of the Linnaean system, form-ing the bulk of the work, are taken, almost

entirely, from Smith and Wildenow, theymay be passed over in silence ; but we arealmost surprised that even so blind andservile a compiler as Mr. Castle, shouldhavecontented himself by giving a long accountof the natural system of Jussieu, without thesmallest notice of the far more perfect andcomplete arrangement of Decandolle, whosename, and, indeed, the names of the mosteminent botanists of the present day, are noteven once mentioned.

It would be fatiguing our readers to nopurpose were we to enter more minutelyinto the work, or to point out its less im-

portant errors and omissions. We will only,therefore, observe, in conclusion, that theauthor appears to have no real knowledge ofbotany, though he may have learnt a certainnumber of words and phrases by rote, as issufficiently manifested by the imperfectionsof those few parts of the book which are not

directly copied from other authors ; of coursethe book is suited only for those who maywish to obtain the same imperfect kind ofinformation on the subject.

BIOGRAPHY OF SOEMMERING.

SAMUEL THOMAS VON SOEMMERING, Wasborn at Thorn, in East Prussia, on the 25thof January, 1755. He took his degree atthe University of Goettingen on the 7th ofApril, 1778 ; his inaugural dissertation," De Basi Encephali et Originibus Nervo-rum, Cranio egredientium," clearly evincesthat admirable talent of observation, and in-defatigable power of research, which are themost eminent features of Soemmering’s ge-nius. In 1779 he published a work on thelymphatic system, and in 1784, at the time when the political liberty of the Degroes

was so fervently discussed by. Condorcetand Raynal, a treatise on the anatomicaldifference between the Negro and European.In the following year he published his re.searches on the pineal gland ; in 1786, thaton the decussation of the optic nerves; andin 1788, his work on the brain and spinalchord. During this period, when he seemedto be exclusively engaged in anatomical re-searches on the brain and nervous system,he wrote a pathological treatise, " De Per.turbatione Critica et Crisi," and a popularwork on the injurious effects of stays. Themuseum at Cassel, which contained a veryrich collection of monstrosities, was at thattime transferred to Marburg, in the neigh-bourhood of Soemmering’s residence, who,in the midst of his practical labours, madethis collection the object of his studies ; thefruit of which is his magnificent work onacephalous and bicephalous monsters. In1791, he published a work on the treatmentof stone, and in 1.795, in conjunction withWenzel, a treatise on the effect of gout onthe osseous system. The results of all hisanatomical researches are preserved in hislarge work on the structure of the humanbodv, the numerous editions and translationsof which are a sufficient proof of its greatvalue ; some parts of it, especially thoserelating to the structure of the brain, to

osteology, and the formation of the teeth,will, perhaps, for ever stand unrivalled foraccuracy and clearness. By his constantresearches into the structure of the brain,Soemmering thought to have obtained someclue with regard to the organ of the mind,the seat of which he conceived to be thefluid exhaled in the cerebral ventricles. Thisidea he put forth in a separate treatise, pub.lished at Koenigsberg, in 1796. Another

opinion, somewhat connected with the for-mer, and no less hypothetical, he had formed,on a peculiar liquid circulating in the nerves;his treatise on it was published at a laterperiod, in 1811. In his magnificent " Ta-bulm Baseos Encephali," he gave a descrip-tion of the principal differences betweenthe brain of man and of animals. Towardsthe end of the last century, the Academy ofGoettingen had published a paper on themeans of preventing the occurrence of rup-tures ; Soemmering took up the subject, andwithin a short time published a considerablenumber of scientific and popular works on

it. In this treatise on umbilical hernia, he,for the first time, brought forward the opi-nion, now generally established, that in theumbilical hernia of adults, the rupture isnever formed by, but near, the cicatrix of thenavel.The knowledge we possess at present of

the intimate structure of the lungs, is almostentirely owing to the researches of Soem-

mering and Reiseisen, who, for the first