From these extracts our readers, we imagine, will be able to form a proper judgment of Polybius and his tranflator. In the one they will find a remarkable integrity, and many excellent obfervations, in the other a faithful and elegant reprefentation of the original.

There yet remain untranflated, Excerpta de Legationibus, et Excerpta de Virtutibus & Vitiis, with which Mr. Hampton, we hope, intends to favour the public in another volume.

II. Medical Tranfaction, published by the College of Physicians in London. Vol. II. 8vo. 5. Baker.

TH

'HE first article in this volume is an account of the hectic fever by Dr. Helerden, which is delivered with great accuracy, and discovers very extensive observation. After remarking the various circumftances that distinguish this species of fever from the genuine intermittent, the author relates fe-' veral anomalous symptoms with which it is frequently accompanied. Hectic patients, he obferves, often complain of pains resembling those of the rheumatifin, which either irregularly affect different parts of the body, or conftantly return to the fame part; which is often at great distance from the feat of the principal diforder, and apparently void of any connection with it. These pains are fometimes fo violent as to require a large quantity of opium, and the Doctor has obferved, that they are the most ufual where the hectic arifes from fome ulcer expofed to the air, as in cancers of the face, breafts, &c. In this fever he has been furprised to fee fwellings arife almoft inftantaneously, as if the part was fuddenly become fatter, Thefe fwelings, he remarked, were not painful, hard, or difcoloured, and continued for feveral hours. After mentioning the feveral caufes of this difeafe, he takes notice, that the resemblance which it bears to an intermittent frequently in duces the physician, as well as the fick and their friends, to have recourse to the Peruvian bark; but he never remembers to have feen any good from that medicine, where the fever was not attended with an apparent ulcer.

The second article contains remarks on the pulfe, communicated by the fame judicious author. He very justly rejects the minute diftin&tions which have been made in refpect to this fubject, as conducing very little either to the knowledge or cure of diseases; and he informs us, that he has more than once obferved old and eminent practitioners determine fo differently of the various kinds of pulfes, that he was certain they did not exprefs the fame fenfations by the fame names.

We

We shall present our readers with his useful observations to wards confirming, correcting, or enlarging the remarks which have been made relative to the degrees of quicknefs, or frequency of the pulfe in the feveral ages and diftempers. In the following extract, when the time is not specified in which the number of pulfations is performed, a minute is to be understood.

limits

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The pulfe of children under two years old fhould be felt while they are asleep; for their pulfes are greatly quickened by every new fenfation, and the occafions of these are perpetnally happening to them while they are awake. The pulfe then of a healthy infant afleep on the day of its birth is between 130 and 140 in one minute; and the mean rate for the first month is 120; for during this time the artery often beats as frequently as it does the firft day, and I have never found it beat flower than 108. During the first year the be fixed at 108 and 120. For the fecond year at 90 and 100. For the third year at 80 and 108. The fame will very nearly ferve for the fourth, fifth, and fixth years. In the feventh year the pulfations will be fometimes fo few as 72, though generally more; and in the twelfth year in healthy children they will often be not more than 70; and therefore, except only that they are much more eafily quickened by illness or any other caufe, they will differ but little from the healthy pulfe of an adult, the range of which is from a little below 60 to a little above 80. It must be remembered, that the pulfe becomes more frequent, by ten or twelve in a minute, after a full meal.

If the pulfe either of a child or of an adult be quickened fo as to excede the utmost healthy limit by ten in a minute, it is an indication of fome little diforder. But a child is fo irritable, that during the first year a very flight fever will make the artery beat 140 times, and it will beat even 160 without danger; and as there begins to be fome difficulty in counting the pulfe when the motion is fo rapid, the thirst, quickness of breathing, averseness from their food, and above all the want of fleep, enable us better than the pulfe to judge of the degree of fever in infants.

A child of two years will die of an inflammatory fever, though the artery beat only 144 times in a minute; and I have feen a child of four years recover from a fever, in which it beat 156 times; and one of nine, where it beat 152.

If the pulfe of a child be 15 or ao below the lowest limit of the natural ftandard, and there be at the fame time, figns of confiderable illness, it is a certain indication, that the brain is affected, and confequently fuch a quiet pulfe, inftead of giving us hope, fhould alarm us with the probability of imminent danger.

In adults ill of an inflammatory fever the danger is generally not very great, where the beats are fewer than 100; 120 fhew the beginning of danger, and they feldom excede this number unat tended with delirioufnefs, and where the patient does not die. There are two exceptions to this obfervation: the first is, that before fome critical fwelling or depofit of matter begins to fhew it. felf in fevers, the pulfe will be fo rapid and indistinct as hardly to admit of being counted; but I have known it certainly not lefs than 150, and yet the patient has recovered. Acute rheumatisms afford a fecond exception, in which the artery will often beat above 120 times without any fort of danger; and in both these cases we

may

may remark, that the appetite and fenfes and fleep and ftrength are put lefs out of their natural state, than where the life of the pas tient is in imminent danger.

Though it be difficult to count above 140 strokes in a minute, if they be unequal in time or in ftrength, yet where they have been very diftinct I have been able to count 180.

Afthmatic perfons are often feized with an uncommonly bad fit, arifing probably from fome great inflammation of the lungs ; and here, if the pulfe excede 120, they very rarely recover.

In an illnefs where the pulfe all at once becomes quiet from being feverishly quick, while all the other bad figns are aggravated, it is a proof, not of the decrease of the diforder, but of the leffened irritableness of the patient, the disease being translated to the brain; and a palfy, apoplexy, or death, is to be apprehended.

* In low fevers, and in exhaufted old men, the pulfe will often continue below 100 or even 90, and yet the diftemper be attended with want of fleep, deliriousness, reftleffnefs, and a parched tongue, and end in death without any comatous or lethargic appearances.

• Scirrhous diforders of any of the vifcera in an inflamed state, cancers, and gangrenous or otherwife ill-conditioned large ulcers, usually occasion a gradual lofs of flesh, a heat, thirst, and a pulle between 90 and 120 for many months. This ftate of the body is called a hectic fever; and fome judgement may be formed of the degree of danger by the frequency of the pulse. But a quickened pulfe more certainly denotes danger, than a natural one does fecurity, where there are ulcers, or where diforders of the viscera are fufpected. I have known perfons die of cancerous ulcers, of the anus, tefticles, proftate gland, and of almoft all the vifcera, without ever fhewing any præternatual quickness of the pulfe. It is obfervable in hectic, as well as in rheumatic patients, that they will eat with a tolerable appetite for many months, and bear little journies, with fuch a quickness of pulfe, as in acute fevers would be joined with an averfenefs from all food, and an inability to keep out of bed.'

From thefe obfervations he rationally concludes, that the pulfe, though in many cafes an ufeful index, is not alone to be depended upon, without a due regard to other figns. He is of opinion, that an intermitting pulfe ought not to be considered as a dangerous fymptom; for that it may be occafioned by fuch trivial caufes as are of no moment without the concurrence of other bad figns. In oppofition to the current opinion, that great pain will quicken the pulfe, Dr. Heberden declares he is more certain that mere pain will not always do it, than he is that it ever will. In fupport of this affertion, he obferves, that the violent pain occafioned by a stone paffing from the kidneys to the bladder, is often unattended with any quickness of the pulfe; and that the excruciating torture produced by a gall ftone paffing through the gall ducts, never ́· once quickened the pulfe beyond its natural ftandard, as far as he has found from experience.

VOL. XXXII. March, 1772.

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The

The next number is an account of an extraordinary ptyalifm in a young lady. The quantity of the difcharge was in general from one pint, to two pints and an half, in twenty-four hours. By this evacuation the patient's ftrength became greatly impaired, and the most efficacious medicines had been administered without fuccefs. She had taken large quantities of Peruvian bark, both alone and combined with chalybeats. The fetid gums, opium, amber, alum, and the Neville Holt water, had afterwards been fucceffively given her. A mucilaginous diet had been prefcribed, with conftant exercise on horseback; and a gentle laxative was now and then interposed. All proving ineffectual, fhe tried the tinctura faturnina; being perfuaded likewife to chew the Peruvian bark, and to fwallow the faliva. For the space of two years, the patient had taken fome or other of these medicines without any effect, when it was judged unneceffary to continue such a course any longer. At this time the person who attended her, who was Mr. Power, furgeon at Polefworth, in Warwickshire, conceived a fufpicion that fome extraneous body, lodged in the meatus auditorius, might be the caufe of this extraordinary fecretion, by fupporting a continual irritation in the parotid glands. He examined therefore her ears, and extracted from them a quantity of fetid wool, to which he attributed the falivation. The disease, however, did not immediately abate upon the extraction of this fubftance, and it is not unreafonable to fuppofe, with Mr. Power, that the difcharge might be continued by the force of habit, after the original caufe was removed. In confequence of this idea, he judged it expedient to compenfate for the fecretion of the faliva by fome other habit which might be gradually left off; and for this purpose he advifed the patient to chew conftantly a little dry bread, and to fwallow it with her fpittle. In a few weeks the disorder fo much abated, that he found it neceffary to chew the bread only at certain hours in the day, and in the space of two months fhe was entirely cured. It is related, that at first the fwallowing of fo much faliva frequently o cafioned a nausea; and that then, for a few hours, he was obliged to spit it out as ufual. We are alfo informed, that during the greatest part of the time when the chewed the bread, fhe had a ftool or two every day more than usual.

Number IV. is the cafe of a locked jaw, occasioned by a wound of the ancle. After a large quantity of opium and musk had been given without fuccefs, the diforder was cured by the following means. A blifter was applied between the fhoulders; the whole fpine and jaw were anointed with the oleum lateritium; and a purge, confifting of the tinctura facra

jala

jalapii, and the fyr. de rhamno cathartico, was administered, and thrice repeated at the distance of three or four days. On the intermediate days the patient was ordered the ol. fuccini, as. fœtid. and the ol. amygdalinum.

The next article is a cafe of the hydrophobia, in which we find nothing very remarkable.

Number VI. is an account of a diforder of the breast, by Dr. Heberden, of which, though not extremely rare, he does not recollect any notice to have been taken by medical writers. He gives it the name of angina pectoris. He has obferved, that it attacks people while they are walking, especially when that happens to be foon after eating, with a painful and most disagreeable sensation in the breast. This uneafinefs, however, notwithstanding its extreme violence, immediately vanishes upon the perfon's ceafing to move. At the beginning of this disorder, the patients are, in all other refpects, perfectly well, and particularly have no fhortness of breath, from which this affection is quite different. When it has continued some months, it appears that it will not ceafe fo instantaneously upon standing still; and attacks perfons not only when walking, but when lying, obliging them to rife out of bed every night for many months together, Excepting one patient, all whom Dr. Heberden has feen affected with this disorder, were men generally above fifty years old, and most of them with a short neck, and inclining to be fat. therto been unnoticed, it may be readers the author's obfervations

cure.

As this diforder has hiproper to lay before our refpecting its nature and

When I first took notice of this diftemper, and could find no fatisfaction from books, I confulted an able phyfician of long experience, who told me that he had known feveral ill of it, and that all of them had died fuddenly. This obfervation I have reafon to think is generally true of fuch patients; having known fix of those, for whom I had been confulted, die in this manner and more perhaps may have experienced the fame death, which I had no opportunity of knowing. But though the natural tendency of this illness be to kill the patients fuddenly, yet unless it have a power of preferving a perfon from all other ails, it will eafily be believed, that some of those, who are afflicted with it, may die in ä different manner, fince this diforder will laft, as I have known it more than once, near twenty years, and moft ufually attacks only those who are above fifty years of age. I have accordingly obferved one, who funk under a lingering illness of a different nature.

The os fterni is ufually pointed to as the feat of this malady, but it seems fometimes as if it was under the lower part of it, and at other times under the middle or upper part, but always inclining more to the left fide, and fometimes there is joined with it a pain about the middle of the left arm. What the particular mischief is, which is referred to thefe different parts of the fternum,

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