themselves in the organism. It is no doubt highly interesting to become acquainted with the relations of the external world and the organic, to see what the organism receives from the external world, and what it gives back to it in return. These relations, however, appertain not to the interior machinery of the organization itself; these relations are not life, but the means and accidents of life.

In conclusion, we must observe that it is not Liebig alone who has become involved in the errors now pointed out. Many others are in the same case. Only Liebig, being less aware of the difficulties which met him in the domain of physiology, or of the dangers to which he was exposed therein, was led away so as to penetrate farther in this erroneous direction than he would otherwise have ventured. Liebig's deserts in the department of chemistry, as such, we acknowledge with pleasure; they possess the highest interest for the physician on the important subject of the residues of life; but we consider it our duty strenuously to oppose the erroneous application of chemistry to physiology, wherein the doctrine of change of substance and of the chemical process is mistaken for the doctrine of the vital process, fearing lest such erroneous application may occasion an injurious re-action on practical life.-Condensed from the Beiträge zur Physiologischen und Pathologischen Chemie und Mikroscopie, &c. Berlin, 1844. By Dr. Fr. Simon.

MENTAL HYGIENE OR AN EXAMINATION OF THE INTELLECT AND PASSIONS, DESIGNED TO ILLUSTRATE THEIR INFLUENCE ON HEALTH AND THE DURATION OF LIFE. By W. Sweetser, M.D. (Reprinted from the American Edition.) Edinburgh, 1844.

THE close and intimate connexion between mind and body, the reciprocal influence so constantly maintained between both, may he said to be self-evident. So obvious indeed is this mutuality, and so palpable is the constant interchange of influence subsisting between our mental and corporeal natures, that they can hardly have escaped the most inattentive observation. We every day see that the functions of either being disturbed, more or less derangement will invariably be reflected to those of the other. There is no bodily frame so strong as to escape suffering, when the mind has been agitated and afflicted; nor any mind so firm, as to remain unharmed amid the infirmities and sufferings of the body.

The object of the work now under consideration is to elucidate the influence of intellect and passion on the health and well-being of the human frame. There is good reason to believe that this influence has been but very imperfectly understood and appreciated in its character and importance by mankind in general. Few have formed any adequate estimate of the sum of bodily ills which have their source in the mind. Even the members of the medical profession, habitually concentrating their attention upon physical, are too prone to neglect the mental, causes of disease; and thus may patients be subjected to the harshest medicines of the Pharmacopoeia, the true origin of whose malady is some inward and rooted sorrow, which a moral balm alone can reach. The present work is divided into two parts. Under the first, the author considers the intellectual operations in respect to their influence on the general functions of the body. But the effects which they induce in the animal economy being less strongly marked, and less hazardous to its welfare, than those belonging to the passions, comparatively little space is devoted to this division. Indeed, when pure, or as much so as is consistent with their nature, the intellectual operations can by no means be viewed as an ordinary occasion of disease, or as tending directly to abbreviate the term of human existence. On the contrary, ordinary experience

warrants us in believing that a judicious exercise of the intellectual faculties is conducive both to health and happiness. We know there have not been wanting persons, aye, and those persons eminent for learning too, who maintain that the savage is our only natural and happy condition. Thus, we read of man in the golden age of his early creation, dwelling in a mild and balmy climate abounding in vegetable productions suitable to his wants, living solitary, naked, savage; roaming without care or thought the vast forests which he held in common with the brute-we read of him as being then pure, gentle, and innocent, exempt from all those multiform and painful maladies which now afflict and shorten his career. In this state, free from all those lights and shadows of the soul which spring from cultivated intellect, like the brutes, he was happy in the bare consciousness of existence; in exercising his limbs; in basking in the sunshine, or cooling himself in the shade; and in the gratification of his mere animal propensities. But that such a primæval state of blissful ignorance, health and purity, ever existed, we have no other evidence than what rests on the fancies of poetry, or the dreams of poetic philosophy. The savages of the present day, who, one would think, ought to come most nearly to this blessed state of nature, present a picture the very opposite to that described. The tendency of man is obviously to civilisation and mental progress; whence the highest moral and intellectual advancement of which he is susceptible, is the only natural state that can be predicated of him. The mind, like the body, demands exercise. That the proudest faculties of our nature were intended for slothful inaction-that talents were given us to remain torpid and unproductive-is alike repugnant to reason and analogy. There is, in fact, no power of the living economy, however humble, but needs action, both on its own account, and on that of the general constitution. So closely united by sympathies are all our functions, that the judicious exercise of each one, beside conducing to its individual welfare, must contribute, in a greater or less degree, a healthful influence to every other.

It is, however, an opinion not uncommonly entertained, that studious habits, or intellectual pursuits, tend necessarily to injure the health, and abbreviate the term of life-that mental labours are ever prosecuted at the expense of the body, and must consequently hasten its decay. Such a result, however, is by no means essential, unless the labours be urged to an injudicious excess, when of course, as in all overstrained exertions, whether of body or mind, various prejudicial effects may be naturally anticipated. In support of this opinion abundant instances may be cited, both from ancient and modern times, of men eminently distinguished for the amount and profundity of their mental labours, who, being temperate and regular in their habits, have continued to enjoy firm health, and have attained a protracted existence.

The author, in the next place, considers the evil consequences that may be apprehended from overtasking the intellectual powers. He shews that the powers of the brain may be impaired by extravagant mental, in like manner as those of the muscles by severe corporeal, exertions. Hence, if the intellectual faculties are overstrained habitually, a train of moral and physical infirmities may be induced, which shall embitter existence, and abridge its duration. He then adduces reasons why intellectual operations should prove prejudicial more or less to health, viz. because such operations are necessarily more or less associated with passion-hence it is a matter of daily observation that those mental operations which elicit the strongest moral feelings are most prejudicial to the health.

We shall close our notice of this excellent and truly intellectual performance, not without urgently recommending its attentive and careful perusal to all who desire the mens sana in corpore sano.

ON CERTAIN MORBID STATES OF THE LIVER. By Professer C. H. Schultz. Berlin.

*THE various states of the liver are intimately connected with the changes which may occur in its function. It is accordingly of great importance, to consider the hepatic function from an organico-natural point of view, so much the more, as this organ performs so important a part in the animal economy, both in the healthy and also in the morbid state. The function of the liver is closely connected with the portal system and the blood-moulting, nay the liver is to be regarded as the vertex or apex (die spitze) of the portal function itself. The liver has been frequently considered as a depuratory organ of the body, and the bile as an excrementitious substance; but this view is an uncertain and undefined one, because through it neither the direct relation of this depuration to the vitality of the blood, nor the organic end of the bile during digestion, have been correctly ascertained. The knowledge of the hepatic function is inseparable from the knowledge of the blood-renewal and its moulting; this function is related on the one hand only to the vitality of the blood, and acts on other organs merely indirectly through the blood; on the other hand, it acts through the secretion of bile forwards on chylification in the intestinal canal, and hence the liver possesses not only the importance of an excreting organ, but necessarily serves also as a key-stone for the periodicity of the blood's vitality between the commencement and termination of the same. The blood-moulting necessarily propels the biliary secretion; and the formation of new blood necessarily requires the bile in chylification. Thus the liver holds a middle place between the commencement and termination of blood-formation, and it may be acted on forwards and backwards in such a manner that certain morbid states may be occasioned thereby.

As some of the terms and several of the principles which present themselves in this article, may be difficult to be understood by those not acquainted with the author's peculiar views in Physiology and Pathology, and as his character is very high in both these departments of science, we shall take this opportunity of giving a summary here, so far as may be necessary, to render this article easily understood. In the year 1842, Professor Schultz published a work entitled Ueber die Verjüngung des menschlichen Lebens und die Mittel und Wege zur ihrer Kultur-that is in plain English, On the Youthification of Human Life, and the Ways and Means for its Culture.

We are taught by physiology that the materials of which the body is composed are constantly undergoing changes, new matter being deposited and the old removed, or, as the author calls these two processes, the process of renewal and the process of separation, the effete or worn-out particles; to the latter process he gives the name of moulting. The substances which are moulted are but the debris left by the process of renewal. In another work of his, entitled Systema der Circulation, &c. the author has shown-that the blood-vesicles, called by others blood-corpuscles, are constantly undergoing renewal and disorganization-that the only organised constituents of the blood are the plasma or liquor sanguinis, and these vesicles-that the proper function of these vesicles is to absorb oxygen in the lungs-that their capacity to perform this function depends on their contractility-that the first origin of these vesicles is in the lymphatic system that when this blood-vesicle is no longer capable of being acted on by oxygen from a loss of its contractility, it becomes effete, its colouring matter has to be removed, and itself has to be excreted--that it is in the liver all those changes are to take place-that it is in the vena portæ the old worn-out vesicles are taken out of the circulation, and the debris separated from the blood-that

1. First of all, the evacuation of the bile from the gall-bladder and the biliary ducts is affected sympathetically by the state of the intestinal motion. The intestinal motion is propagated sympathetically to the gall-ducts and gall-bladder, as may be readily seen by artificially irritating the intestine in an animal just killed, as in a duck, and on accelerating the intestinal motion the discharge of bile becomes also accelerated, and vice versa, by retarding the intestinal motion, the motion of the gall-bladder, and of the bile-ducts are retarded and interrupted: a disposition to diarrhoea or to constipation acts in this way backwards on the liver, and the former will be followed by a hepatic flux, the latter by hepatic infarction, if these states should continue for any time. We find an instance of the first case, wherever there exists a disposition to the formation of acid in the intestinal canal of scrophulous children, or in the diarrhoea of adults occasioned by the same cause, and this state weakens the liver as well as the intestinal canal, so that at length the liver does not perfectly free the blood from the moulting material, and a disposition to jaundice is the consequence. In cases of hepatic obstruction, wherein a concentrated bile is contained for a long time in the gallbladder, there arise dispositions to the formation of gall-stones, hepatic swellings, and hypertrophy, the moulting plastic material combining in such cases with the formative material, and thus producing increase of nutrition (des Vegetirens). In the case of the liver this is so much the more possible, as the vena portæ which contains the moulting blood exercises plastic powers similarly to arteries. Another morbid state of the liver occurs in Summer and in Tropical Climates, whereby bilious fever, bilious vomiting, and bilious diarrhoeas are produced. This state is occasioned by an excessive transformation of the melanotic blood into bilious blood immediately in the vena porta. In order to understand this rightly, it must be considered that, for the secretion of bile in general, two sorts of conditions in the blood of the porta are necessary. 1st. The presence of a great quantity of colouring matter in the effete blood-vesicles, accordingly great quantities of black cruor, no longer capable of respiration and vitality. 2nd. That this colouring matter be no longer retained by the blood-vesicles, but be dissolved in the plasma whereby the plasma of the portal blood, as we have shown*, becomes redder, than arterial and venous blood. During its passage through the liver the portal blood in the healthy state loses the colouring matter dissolved in the plasma, which has been employed in the secretion of bile. The cause of this greater solution of colouring matter in the plasma of the portal blood lies partly in the greatly diminished contractility of the old bloodless membranes (of the blood

these blood-vesicles are the true respiratory organs of the blood and subservient to the completion of the process of assimilation-that by absorption of oxygen the granular substance which constitutes the origin of the vesicle in the ĺymphatics is transformed into plasma, whilst the colouring matter is the residue of the transforming processes-that the plasma is the colourless organised plastic fluid in which the vesicles float-that this plasma is the true formative and nutritive material in the blood, and consequently that it exists in less quantity in venous than in arterial blood-that if the old vesicles are not excreted from the blood, as new ones form, the portal system becomes congested-that the last change the blood-vesicles undergo is moulting-that the blood purifies itself from these, and that the liver is the organ in which this exit from the circulation is made that as the vascular system has no direct emunctory through which the moulted debris may be thrown off, the circulation through the liver pours them out into the intestines as bile-that the blood in the vena portæ differs from common venous blood in its colouring matter being darker, in containing less plasma, and in its plasma containing colouring matter, and in being more aqueous.-Reviewer.

• See the author's work entitled System der Circulation. S. 322.-Rev.

vesicles) which no longer retain the colouring matter, and partly in the greater proportion of water contained in the portal blood, whereby the colouring matter is more easily dissolved in the plasma.

We have now to consider, how far these circumstances are concerned in producing a disposition to bilious diseases in Summer, and in Tropical Regions. There is formed a great mass of bilious blood, the melanotic being changed into the bilious by solution of the colouring matter in the plasma. We have now to investigate the conditions under which the change takes place. They are chiefly two: 1. A greater debility and relaxation of the blood-vesicles, and a more watery state of the blood. These conditions are occasioned by the mode of life which men follow in Summer and in Tropical Regions: first, by the greater quantity of vegetable diet; and, secondly, by the greater quantity of watery

drinks used.

1. Vegetable food forms in general only small blood-vesicles, and such as are provided with only very delicate membranes. This is seen in all graminivorous animals, which are found to have much smaller and more delicate bloodvesicles than carnivorous animals. Accordingly, a much greater quantity of water is required to dissolve the colouring matter from the blood of dogs and cats, than from the blood of rabbits and sheep. One may, with three or four parts of water, wash away all the colouring matter from the blood-vesicles of sheep and rabbits, whilst five or six parts, and even more, are necessary to wash it away from the blood of dogs and cats. Similar conditions are produced in the case of man by a preponderance of flesh or vegetable diet. To this it may be added, that the carnivorous blood-vesicles become much older, because they are more robust than the herbivorous. The herbivorous vesicles are, accordingly, much earlier in becoming effete, and in having this colouring matter dissolved, and hence it is evident how a mass of blood-vesicles which has been formed in man whilst feeding on a preponderating quantity of vegetable diet, especially raw fruits, which are eaten in such quantities in Summer, and in Tropical Regions, will evince such little resistance to the solution of its vesicles, so that there is already present a strong disposition to the formation of a red plasma, especially in the vena porta. Hence it is, that vegetable blood, if I may so call it, disposes so much to liver and bilious affections. This is strikingly exemplified in the case of sheep, an extraordinary number of which die of liver diseases, so that scarcely an old sheep is to be found with a healthy liver. This is to be referred solely to the peculiar nature of the blood-renewal in these animals.

2. The attenuation of the blood by the excessive use of watery drinks, occasioned by the heat of Summer, and in Tropical Regions, forms the second cause of a disposition to hepatic disease. We have shewn elsewhere how by waterdrinking from five to six per cent. of water, on an average, is introduced into the blood, and that this quantity more than suffices to dissolve so much colouring matter, that the entire plasma becomes reddened thereby. This effect is seen first in the portal blood, because the water drunk is absorbed from the stomach and intestinal canal by the roots of the vena portæ, (and but very little by the lymphatics,) so that the portal blood first comes in contact with the great quantity of water consumed, even though this same is subsequently diffused throughout the entire mass of blood. Now the more relaxed the state of the blood is, the less power is there to eliminate the water again through the skin or kidneys, and the longer will the water tarry in the blood, and exert its cruor-dissolving power in the entire mass of blood. Both these states now occur: the feeble relaxed state of the herbivorous vesicles, after the use of large quantities of vegetable food, and the excessive use of watery drinks: these are the necessary conditions for producing a disposition to bilious and hepatic diseases in Summer, and in Tropical Regions. In the next place, the liver becomes overloaded with bilious blood, the secretion of bile is exalted. Should this state continue, the