all three are now in active operation. A great re-action had thus unquestionably taken place, which ever since has been deepening and widening its current, and may be expected to be further instrumental as a reviving power of improvement, provided the State also look to it, and facilitate by means of its own, at little real cost, the flow of its channels and feeding streams. Although in a region where previously a, comparatively speaking, Cimmerian darkness had prevailed, this enlightenment was auspiciously felt throughout the whole body of the profession in the East, still there was a void, which the appearance at long intervals, of an occasional volume of Transactions could not fill up. The want of a monthly medical periodical became palpable. In India serious difficulties beset the first establishment of a literary project of any kind. The merit of establishing the first medical periodical in India is due to Messrs. Grant and Pearson of the Bengal Presidency, who on the 1st January, 1834, at their own sole responsibility and cost, it appears, issued the first Number of the India Journal of Medical Science," which was, a year or two afterwards, transferred to Mr. Corbyn, who has continued to conduct it with great zeal and success. Some years afterwards, under the able management of Mr. Rogers, a similar medical periodical was established at Madras; nor has Bombay been wanting in the good cause. So far then, the members of the profession in India have done their part and done it well, all things considered. They have in some measure roused themselves out of the lethargic state in which they lay so long, through the soporific influences of causes that we have endeavoured to lay impartially before our readers. It remains now for the authorities to do their part, aye and to do it in a statesmanlike manner too. Of late they made a good beginning in ameliorating the scale of retiring pensions, so as to bring medical officers nearer to a par in that respect with their military brethren. Much, however, yet remains to be done before an approach even to moral equality of privileges and immunities can be made out on the part of the medical officer. The Medical Service as a body stands urgently in need of being raised in public estimation. Mere self-respect will not always support a corps unless it unmistakeably feels, and sees that others acknowledge it to be held in honor by the State. No such conviction can possibly support the Indian medical service, since we have it upon evidence which we deem conclusive that it does not exist. That Service feels itself, from the treatment it has received and continues to receive, to be a low corps. Nothing has yet been done by the State emphatically to evince the contrary. Mere emoluments and pensions will not do this, even were they still greater than they are. Something more than the easy means of animal and social sustentation is required here. The mind of man has its lacteals as well as his physical frame. The spirit has its chyle without which it pines and dies. If the Medical Staff of India be not considered a low corps at head quarters, unquestionably their systematic exclusion from all honors and distinctions whatsoever, on the part of the State, effectually brands them as such in the face of their military brethren. What mark of consideration has the Government ever conferred on distinguished officers of this class? In all other departments of the service, when the head of a department retires, or dies, some graceful mark is enunciated in the Gazette, of the sense entertained of his merits and services. Nothing of the sort is done as regards the heads of the medical department of the army. They may come or go, live or die, it is all the same, there is an exalted unconsciousness exhibited in the organs of public expression of their having ever existed. No notice, no compliment, no order, no honor of any kind ever awaits them living or dead. For this studied superciliousness and neglect there must surely be some cause? What is it? Or is it causeless and wholly unmerited? Either they do not deserve it or they do-it is intentional or it is fortuitous. If the latter, it ought forthwith to be remedied, and large amends made for past exclusion; if the former, then are they thus confessedly stamped as forming a class, to whom it would be derogatory on the part of the State to pay any public compliment whatsoever for pay and allowances and pension are no compliment at all, but the quid pro quo of hard service and exile. On either horn of the dilemma, the cause of this scandalous neglect rests, and it may be added as a corollary on this "eternal fitness of things"-that in a country where the heads of the clergy are received with salvos of cannon, the heads of the Army Medical Department have no salute whatever accorded to them. We have stated that all the reward they have then, or ever can expect, is pecuniary. In all campaigns there is a lively excitement produced in every grade by the prospect of advancement and distinction. Medical officers unhappily are the exception. To them it is a very up-hill prospect indeed, all responsibility, painful anxiety and toil, but no chance whatever of advancement or distinction. They behold those who entered the army many years after them pass them in the race, honored and bedecorated, while they may go on from Burmah to Burtpore, from Ghuznee to Meeanee unnoticed and undistinguished. But they are in excellent company-look at the Royal Medical Service. Did any honour devolve on the surgeons who shared in the perils and toils of our great naval engagements? Where are those that should have rendered effulgent the heads of the medical staff in the Peninsular campaigns? But has not the head of the Army Medical Department been made a Baronet? Indeed! and have not Brewers and Stationers been created Baronets? Why should not the head of a great department receive a Peerage as well as others who have not deserved a jot better. "Podalirius et Machaon secuti ducem Agamemnon a Trojano bello, attulerunt non mediocrem opem suis commilitionibus." Alas! the great Duke deems that he has done enough for the Army Medical Staff. They have no medals, no escutcheons, no ribbons. Unlike Menelaus, His Grace never came under any Machaon's hands in the day of battle, nor did an army look, as in the case of the great Grecian leader, to one divine man as holding in his hands, while the life blood welled over his harness-the fate as it were of Greece. God forbid that the great Duke should ever need such aid. If he had needed it in time past, perhaps it were better for the Medical Staff. Be that however as it may, it will hereafter reflect no credit on his memory, let his flatterers say what they please, that when he might have honored science, and noble zeal, in the line of the most arduous of professions, he neglected it with the cold impassiveness of aristocratic scorn. We have thus endeavoured fairly to shew cause why the field of Indian research has not been more productive. Nevertheless, however great the negligence of their superiors may have been to their just claims, we must remind the Indian Medical Service, that the genius of their noble profession will not hold them excusable, if they halt in any respect behind the spirit of the age. Considering how recent the re-action has been, and how little has been done for it by the State, the candid enquirer will allow that it is very honorable to that service. One of their own number has forcibly pointed out to them a walk in which much remains to be done, and in which he has himself been a distinguished labourer; we mean the field of Medical Statistics, in which Mr. J. R. Martin has so successfully led the way. "We may not," (says Hobbes*) "as in a circle, begin the handling of a science from what point we please. There is a certain clue of reason, whose beginning is in the dark, but by the benefit of whose conduct, we are led, as it were, by the hand, into the clearest light, so that the principle of dictation is to be taken from that darkness, and then the light to be carried thither for the irradiating its doubts. As often therefore as any writer doth weakly forsake that clue, or wilfully cut it asunder, he describes the first steps, not of his progress in science but of his wanderings from it." Is not this observation in relation to ethics eminently applicable to the subject of medical statistics as a clue to generalisation in tracing the history of disease and climate? We would strongly impress upon our brethren in India the excellence of the advice given to them by Mr. Martin-" let them seriously examine the influences of general tropical climate, of locality, and of season on European health; such objects are in reality of more value than volumes of cases, or details of routine practice; their careful investigation will confer permanent benefit on the public service, and sooner or later derive honor to themselves, difficult if not impossible to be obtained in any other way." Let them turn up the same work in regard to the climate of Bengal, and from the motto of Cabanis (p. 15) to the running commentary upon his and Malte Brun's text, they will find an abstract of what is meant by climate felicitously illustrated throughout the whole work, the constant recollection of which will be edifying and profitable. The subject is by no means new. The following observations are two hundred years old. "Lemnius reckons up two main things most profitable and most pernicious to our bodies: air and diet. Such as is the air, such be our spirits, and as our spirits, such are our humors. It offends commonly if it be too hot and dry, thick, fuliginous, cloudy, blustering, or a tempestuous air. Bodine, in his fifth book proves that hot countries are most troubled with melancholy. Cold air in the other extreme is almost as bad as hot. The worst of the three is a thick, cloudy, misty, foggy air, or such as comes from fens, moorish grounds, lakes, muckhills, draughts, sinks, where any carcases or carrion lie, or from whence any stinking fulsome smell comes. * * * Alexandria, an haven town in the Mediterranean Sea, Saint John de Ulloa, an haven in Nova-hispania, are much condemned for a bad air, so is Durazzo in Albania, Lituania, Ditmarsh, Pomptinæ Paludes in Italy, the territories about Pisa, Ferrara, &c. Romney Marsh with us: the Hundreds in Essex, the Fens in Lincolnshire. The best soil commonly yields the worst air, a dry sandy plat is fittest to build upon, and such as is rather hilly than plain. * Constantine (de Agricult.) praiseth mountains, hilly steep places, above the rest by the sea side, and such as look towards the North. Serenat Boreas, the North wind clarifies, but near lakes or marshes, in holes, obscure places, or to the South and West, he utterly disproves. Those winds are unwholesome, putrifying, and make men subject to diseases. Varro de re rusticâ forbids lakes and rivers, marsh and manured grounds, they cause a bad air, and gross diseases hard to be cured."* Not only are diseases frequently changing their character, but modifications of condition produce new crimes, as well as new diseases. The last fact was well known to the ancients—“ vero etiam nova genera morborum sæpe incidere in quibus usus ostenderit adhuc nihil." The immense importance indeed of the neglect of Medical Statistics in all its extensive bearings, is so obvious, that we do not deem it necessary to dilate upon it further here, more especially as the attention of Indian medical officers would seem to have been aroused to it by the General Order of Nov. 1835, which originated with Mr. Martin. The work, the title of which heads these remarks, sufficiently indicates this gratifying fact, for almost all the items of the Number in question point in the right direction-as may be seen by a glance at the Table of CONTENTS :— 1. Report of the Diseases which have occurred in the Honorable Company's Steam Flotilla on the river Euphrates, from the 1st January, to the 31st December, 1841, together with an account of the Climate and Medical Topography of the Upper Euphrates. By John C. Floyd, Esq.-2. Annual Report of the Native General Hospital at Bombay, for the year 1841. By A. Graham, Esq.-3. Annual Medical Report of H. M. 2d or Queen's Royal Regiment, from the 1st of April, 1841, to the 31st of March, 1842. By R. H. A. Hunter, Esq.-4. Portion of the Annual Report of the 1st Troop Bombay Horse Artillery, embracing the first eleven months of the year 1841. By A. H. Leith, A.M.-5. Reports of the Medical Statistics of Upper Scinde, drawn up by the Medical Officers serving with the Force under the command of Brigadier England.-6. History of the Epidemic Fever which prevailed among the men of Her Majesty's 17th Regiment during the Monsoon of 1841, when quartered in the Colaba barracks, Bombay. By Arthur S. Thomson, M.D. Assistant Surgeon, 14th Dragoons, lately 17th Foot.-7. Annual Report of the 2nd Battalion, Bombay Artillery, stationed at Fort George, for the year 1841. By T. Robson, Esq.-8. A Letter addressed to the Superintending Surgeon of the Deccan Division, on the use of the Iodide of iron. By D. Grierson, Esq.-9. A Letter on the Fever which prevailed at Bankote in the S. Concan in 1841, addressed to the Superintending Surgeon of the Presidency Division. By T. Waller, Esq.-10. Remarks on the practice of Transfusion and its application in the treatment of Hæmorrhage, &c. deduced chiefly from Recorded cases. By John Peet, Esq.-11. Medico * Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. Historical Abstract of the 1st year's service in the East Indies, of H. M.'s 14th Regiment of Light Dragoons, at Kirkee, under the Bombay Presidency. By J. W. Moffat, Esq. Surgeon H. M.'s 14th Light Dragoons. -12. Observations on the good and bad effects of Calomel in some of the Diseases of India. By J. Murray, Esq.-13. Annual Report of the 25th Regiment, N. I. for the year 1841. By A. Wright, Esq.-14. Annual Report of the Civil Surgeon of Ahmedabad for the year 1841. By S. Sproule, Esq.-15. Contributions to Vegetable Embryology, from observations on the origin and development of the Embryo in Tropœolum Majus. By Herbert Giraud, M.D. Edin. F.B.S.E. Ext. Mem. Med. Soc. Edin. &c. &c. APPENDIX.-1. Extract from a Letter on the Sickness at Kotra in Upper Sinde, addressed to the Surgeon, from W. T. Babington, Esq.-2. Table, shewing the comparative Means and Extremes of Rain-fall and Temperature, at Malcolm Peth, Paunchgunnee, Bombay, and Poona, during the Rainy Season of 1842. By J. Murray, Esq.-3. Annual return of Patients in the Lunatic Asylum, Bombay, from the 1st January to the 31st December 1841. By W. B. Barrington, Esq.-4. The late Assistant Surgeon John Fraser Heddle. Though the details generally do not admit of being very conveniently quoted, they have the merit of being clearly and plainly drawn up, and to be free from that leaven of ambitious writing, which is never so much out of place as in medical records. They afford also a refreshing contrast to the old routine in giving, faithfully, features of physical appearance and peculiarity different from a fashion which is too prevalent when a man travels from Dan even to Beersheba, and his journal affords no testimony to the fact, save in symptoms of ailments. Mr. Floyd's report refers to a line of country that the medical man's attention is seldom called to, in the way of his profession, though it is stereotyped as it were on the memory, in regard to the ancient history of many nations. The Valley of the Euphrates, from the 33rd to the 37th degree of N. lat. is for the most part hilly, and, except in the vicinity of Hilla and Bagdad, devoid of canals. It varies in breadth from two to five miles, except between Hilla and Anna, where it closes in, and becomes in many places less than half a mile in breadth. Second in importance to Hilla is the next station of Musseib, a place of considerable traffic containing about 5000 inhabitants. From this to Felugia, the banks are liable to be inundated during the rainy season. Felugia is in the same latitude as Bagdad, being 34 miles West of it. Here they proposed to establish a Hospital, in the event of the Euphrates being permanently available to us. From this to Hitt, the country begins to rise, a distance of 80 miles. Hitt is situated on an isolated bank of lime-stone rock, and has a population of 3000 souls, for the most part of a sickly aspect, which Mr. Floyd attributes to the impregnation of their atmosphere with sulphuretted hydrogen from the bituminous spings. Bitumen is the staple of the place, being used for a great variety of purposes. From this place to Deir is 252 miles as the river winds. The valley becomes broader, varying from 3 to 10 miles, with thick and extensive Tamarisk jungles. All through this tract, is desolate, which perhaps of itself may be conclusive as to its |