This part of the volume is illustrated by a large plan of the harbour and town of Malta, and by six views of the fortifications, from different points. We cannot highly praise these engravings as works of art, but they appear to be faithful representations of the objects, excepting that some of the prints are deficient in drawing and perspective. The Bay of Marmorice is described, and a chart of it is added. As we have already presented to our readers, from different publications, ample accounts of the landing of the British army in Egypt, and of the battle of the 21st of March, we shall not repeat those particulars from the details which Mr. Anderson has in course inserted. The subsequent operations of the army, until the surrender of Cairo, and the evacuation of Egypt by the French, are also related: in which part of the work, a very liberal use is made of official papers and dispatches. We have received, on the whole, considerable amusement and information from this performance; and we recommend it to the attention of our readers. Mr. Anderson first introduced himself to the public on the occasion of Lord Macartney's celebrated embassy to China, his narrative of which was reviewed in our xviith volume, N. S.; and his present labours he will probably find an equal welcome. Besides the plates which we have already mentioned, we find a view of Cadiz at the distance of five miles. ART. X. An Account of the Discovery and Operation of a New Medicine for Gout. 8vo. pp. 194. 4s. sewed. Johnson. 1803. THE short statement which is given by the author of this pamphlet will make our readers acquainted with the history of this new medicine, and we shall therefore quote it: but we must confess that, as he has thought it proper to keep the name of his remedy secret, we should have deemed it unnecessary to take any notice of his publication, had it not been sanctioned by the names of two physicians. The writer is in middle life, that is, in his forty-fifth year, unconnected with business; and, like many others in the same situation, he has been a victim to the demon of gout; whose very dalliance is torture, and whose frequent embraces are more odious than death. But, by drinking the extracted juice of a ripe fruit, he found the effect to be a gradual diminution of the extreme sensibility of the inflamed part, and this perceptible in a few hours; the angry swelling more tardily receded: yet not so slowly but that in a few days he found himself enabled to ride and walk; and in a short time his health was completely restored. The medicine seemed to effect as much in so many days, as nature or rather the passive plan would have done in so many weeks; and the constitution remained quite unimpaired by the attack. By this statement he is aware that he has rendered himself obnoxious to the question that will here surely arise in the mind of all the well-informed sufferers by gout, as well as in that of their physicians, viz. "Whence this hardiness to tamper with the thread that suspends the sword?" And he feels it incumbent upon him to attempt to answer it, that the idea of a rash tamperer may not accompany the reader through the subsequent narrative. In the retrospect of his life, he finds that he had an early aptitude to attempt to discriminate some of the more obvious qualities of vegetable substances by the appearances they exhibited to the eye: so much so that he could, very generally, resolve for himself, and point out to his comrades, that such a tree bore sweet or sour apples, &c. by the configuration of the leaf, or the twig. He will not here stop to speculate on the cause of this propensity, or on the degree of perfection which it attained. He is satisfied that it has been the source of much gratification to him; though he has sometimes been sharply bitten for the moment, in consequence of the urgent desire he always felt, to taste the fruit, or the leaf, or the bark, of any new, or untried plant, that he chanced to meet with. And it will be equally fruitless to lament that his destinies have forbidden this inclination to be cultivated in the genial soil of medical and botanic science. Nor will he presume now to inquire whether nature, in her ample magazine, have provided an adequate cure for the casual evils that are scattered in the paths of life: or, if the conscious appetite, naturally, embraces these with aviditywhile, with disdain, it rejects the deadly. For, he thinks it suffi cient to the present purpose to state, that fourteen years ago, when under the affliction of an acute rheumatism, he first tasted the fruit above mentioned. Its unforbidding flavour prompted him to a larger trial than he usually bestowed on unknown, or "forbidden fruit." The operation this had on him did not make him fancy that "forthwith up to the clouds" he "flew," but it soon inclined him to surmise that his disorder had abated of its virulence in consequence of it. The fruit was again resorted to; and his pains almost immediately subsided on the second trial. Some six months afterwards, the same enemy again took the field. The preserved juice of this fruit was his only auxiliary, and his considerate resource. His foe was soon dislodged and has never again intruded on his repose. By this experience, he was convinced that the fruit was not deleterious-and he knew, before, that the "birds of the air" fed on it greedily. At the age of between thirty and forty he became subject to gout, In the summer of 1798, he was attacked with a fit of extreme severity. The sufferings which this brings on will need no comment to those that have felt the pangs occasioned by this obdurate intruder while those more favoured, who have never suffered by its baleful depredations, will be unable to conceive its tortures, even by means of the happiest pencil and the most vivid colouring. Though G4 pretty pretty well aware that the faculty could not relieve him, yet the pain was so extreme, and the inflammation so high, that it seemed like indiscretion not to obtain their advice. A practitioner of good repute, visited him three mornings successively: and with the frankness that marks an honourable profession, told him, that it was not in his power to do him any good-that, though the fit was severe, it had no alarming symptoms-and that patience was all he should prescribe. Left in this distressing situation, the remedy formerly used for rheumatism occurred to his recollection." He tasted," (though warily at first,) and he was not disappointed. The following night he slept considerably, which he believes would have been impossible under ordinary cases of the paroxysm: and in the morning felt very little pain, though his feet had every appearance of ardent gout. This happy effect induced him to continue the me dicine to the complete removal of the fit and it will, he hopes, be sufficient to counterbalance all idea of indiscriminate rashness that the coup d'ail might have excited.' We should have expected, from a philanthropist, an immediate publication of the nature and preparation of a remedy thus gifted: but the author has preferred a different course: To prevent unfair trials, and prejudiced or fabricated reports; and that the medicine may be withheld, until its utility shall be fully established under the strict guardianship of medical caution and experience, it has been thought best that it should, for the present, remain under the controul of a few practitioners in different quarters of the kingdom. Two are already in full possession of a knowledge of the remedy, and the mode of administration. A quantity has been lately forwarded to a practitioner of great eminence, at Liverpool. When a few others are fixed upon in convenient situations, of which the public will be duly apprized, a sufficient opportunity, it is hoped, will be afforded for that part of the faculty and the public, which shall feel interested in having the pretensions of this remedy ascertained, to satisfy themselves completely on that point. It is the discoverer's wish, that as many persons in and out of the profession, as possible, should witness the success of the new treatment. But there is indeed another, and an insurmountable reason for the restriction. The stock in hand will be sufficient for the fullest demand of six or eight physicians in the fullest practice and the most favourably situated for attending gouty patients: but by no means adequate to a promiscuous administration of it; which it is feared, would dissipate the medicine, without maturing the experience that would lead to a satisfactory decision of its merits.' Several cases are added, to prove the efficacy of the medicine: though, coming from an anonymous author, they lose most of their weight. From this remark, however, we must except Mr. Bridge's case, communicated by Mr. Luscombe. Mr. John Causer, Stourbridge, Worcestershire.' A quan A quantity of this medicine had been placed in Dr. Bradley's hands, the result of whose experience with it is thus given in a letter to the author: 1. That the medicine is safe and innocent in the doses in which you recommend it. This point I ascertained on first receiving a supply of it from you in May 1801; by taking it myself, and also by administering it to patients labouring under acute rheumatism; in which cases it always alleviated the pain, without producing any disagreeable effects on the constitution. 2. Having observed how often the real merit and virtues of a valuable remedy are obscured or frustrated, by the recommenders extending its uses too widely; I became desirous of ascertaining the description of cases in which the good effects of your medicine could be most certainly predicted. This inquiry led me into an opinion that regular, acutely inflammatory, and painful attacks of gout, were the cases to which its use should generally be confined: as in these I had never seen it fail to produce the desired relief. On the contrary, when the constitution is exhausted by years, intemperance, and disease; when the joints are become rigid, or the organization of them materially changed; when the functions of the stomach, also, are nearly abolished, and the gout makes its assaults upon that organ or the head only; I thought it might injure your discovery to recommend it under such slender hope of success. For these reasons I have been, perhaps, more cautious than many other practitioners might have thought necessary; and have seldom advised the use of your medicine, except in inflammatory and painful cases of gout attacking the feet, knees, hands, &c. There is, however, a very common state of the disease, and in this state it constitutes perhaps one of the greatest miseries of life. I mean the wandering, irregular and uncertain gout. This attacks the sufferer at no regular periods, nor in any certain parts; but sometimes in the knees, elbows, shoulders. loins, stomach, or head; and has no certain course or duration. The slightest irregularity in exercise or diet, or unpleasant news, is sufficient to induce a paroxysm; so that the sufferer is kept in a state of perpetual anxiety and apprehension. To be able to reduce this form of the disease, which is perpetual misery, to regular annual paroxysms, which might in general leave to the patient eleven months of vigorous health; ought to be esteemed no inconsiderable degree of cure. have seen a successful case of this kind. The gentleman is engaged in an active line of business, in Westminster. Three or four additional miles of walking, a late hour, a few extraordinary glasses of wine, or a slight anxiety about his business or his family, would bring on one of his half-formed fits. I Observing the commencement of a paroxysm about the beginning of last December, which time I consider as the regular gouty sea *I also saw the case of Mrs. Tooke, which I understand you intend to publish, and in which the general health of the patient has been astonishingly improved by the occasional use of the medicine.' son, son, I advised him to nurse the paroxysm, and by a few glasses of Madeira or hock, to endeavour to bring on the regular inflammation in the extremities. He succeeded, and the violence of the pain, seconded by my encouragement, overcame his scruples about the danger of tampering with gout, and he was relieved by your remedy in about thirty hours.' About half of the pamphlet is occupied by observations on this medicine, from the pen of Dr. Beddoes; who details several cases in which he thinks it has proved of considerable service. We shall be extremely glad if the agreeable prospects held out in this work should be realized: but frequent disappointments, on similar occasions, have rendered us rather slow of belief. We recollect the noise made by the high temporary repute of Mrs. Stevens's solvent for the stone; and our readers must remember the strong testimonies urged in behalf of those rheumatic remedies which are now entirely superseded. We shall, however, reserve our judgment till the name of the medicine is declared, when the general experience of the Faculty will speedily decide on the real merits of this supposed discovery. The only indications at present afforded, respecting the preparation employed, are that it is a spirituous tincture, almost as strong as Madeira, and that the vegetable from which it is prepared has not found a place in any pharmacopoeia. We are very desirous of being cured of our scepticism, by seeing many of our worthy friends cured of their gout,-either by this or by any other tincture. MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For MAY, 1803. MILITARY. Art. 11. Military Antiquities respecting a History of the English Army, from the Conquest to the present Time. By Francis Grose, Esq. F.A.S. A new Edition, with material Additions and Improvements. 4to. 2 Vols. Large Paper, 6 Guineas; small Paper, 41. 4s. Boards. Egerton, Kearsley, &c. SINCE Our last notice of Captain Grose's Military Antiquities*, he has paid the great debt of human nature; and in him the world lost a man of discriminating mind, and of indefatigable research, attended by uncommon modesty. It will, however, be some consolation to congenial lovers of antiquarian pursuits, to find, by this posthumous edition of one of his most valuable works, that his diligent spirit has not died with him. The present editor observes that *Rev. vol. lxxv. p. 203. and vol. lxxix. pp. 329. 415. • The |