. In the year 876 Tinmouth was again ravaged by Halfden, the Danish king.

During the reign of Athelftan, King of the Weft-Saxons, which began A. D. 924, and ended in 946, this monaftery, then hardly A.D. recovered from its former defolation, was again ravaged by the Danes.

It is no wonder that, after having been fo often plundered and deftroyed, this place fhould have lain fo long in ruins that the remembrance of King Ofwin, the fainted patron thereof, was utterly loft.

After fome refpite from the invafions of the Danish pirates, to whom its expofed fituation on the fea coaft rendered it an easy and defencelets prey; and who, by their repeated depredations, appear to have left nothing that could induce them to return, the then bishop of the diocefe obtained it of the Earls of Northumberland; and, after filling it anew with religious, reftored therein the celebration of divine fervice.

It was not, however, till the latter end of the reign of Edward the Confeffor that the bones of the royal martyr St. Ofwin were dif covered.

were dif About the conclufion of this reign, which ended in 1066, the royal faint and martyr Ofwin, in one of those dreams common to the times, is faid to have appeard to Edmund, the fexton of this place, and pointed out to him the place of his own interment. Judith, wife of Tofti, Earl of Northumberland, gave credit to the fexton's vifion, and ceafed not to exert her influence with Egelwine, then bishop of Dur ham, till he had ordered a fearch to be made for the royal bones, which are faid to have been discovered in an oratory, according to the faint's directions in the vifion, on the 5th of the ides of March, A. D. 1065, and 415 years after his death. The royal remains, after having been inclofed in a coffin, and honoured with every kind of funeral pomp,

-were recommitted to the facred earth.

Tofti, Earl of Northumberland, according to fome writers, res built this monaftery from the foundation.'

Mr. Brand afterwards gives the hiftory of Newcastle, as a corporate town, or borough; which is detailed with great and uninterefting minutenefs through the remaining part of the work. In respect of coal, for which this place has been long fo much diftinguifhed, he juftly obferves, that though fome writers have not fcrupled to affirm that coal was unknown to the ancient Britons, yet others have contended for the contrary by almoft irrefiftible arguments. The Britons, it appears, had a primitive name for this foffil; and Mr. Pennant informs us that a flintax, the inftrument of the aborigines of our ifland, was difcovered ftuck in certain veins of coal, expofed to day, in Craig Park in Monmouthfhire, and in fuch a fituation as to render it very acceffible to the unexperienced natives, who in early times were incapable of purfuing the veins to any great depth. The

Strongeft

ftrongest argument in favour of the opinion of those who think that the Romans, while in Britain, were ignorant of this commodity, is, that their language affords no name for it; the genuine and determinate fignification of carbo being charcoal. But the facts and teftimonies adduced by our author afford much reafon to conclude that coal, though at firft unnoticed in Britain by the Romans, was afterwards in actual use amongst them.

ap

The fecond volume, like the firft, is accompanied with an appendix, containing various documents relative to the subject of the hiftory. It would be a task no lefs unproductive of gratification to our readers than unneceffary, and indeed almoft impoffible for us, to give a more particular account of this work. We have already expreffed our difapprobation of the frivolous prolixity and jejune minutenefs with which it has been induftriously executed; but we cannot conclude without acknowledging at the fame time, in justice to Mr. Brand, that he pears to have fpared no pains in amaffing his extraordinary collection of materials; that he has preferved the historical detail with uninterrupted exactness; and above all, that he has manifefted, by the multiplicity of notes and references, a degree of learning, and an extent of inquiry, which, in a nobler field of hiftorical research, might have crowned his labours with more than common approbation. We must not omit to mention, in favour of the work, that it is embellished with a great number of well-executed engravings.

ART. VI. A Treatise of the Materia Medica. By William Cullen, M.D. Profeffor of the Practice of Phyfic in the Univerfity of Edinburgh, &c. &c. 4to. 2 vols. 1. 11s. 6d. boards. Elliot and Kay. London, 1789.

DR.

R. Cullen, it feems, from the fuccefs of his lectures on the Materia Medica formerly publifhed in his name, though extremely incorrect, had entertained a defign of giving a more accurate and complete edition of thofe lectures but he afterwards abandoned that idea, and has modelled the work into the form in which it now appears. As if he had purposely refolved to preclude incorrectness, as much as poffible, by retrenchment, he has omitted a number of articles common in every treatife on this fubject; and for these omiffions he proceeds to offer an apology, or rather a juftification of his conduct.

In the first place, he informs us that he did not think it neceffary to detail the various nomenclature of the different fubftantes, as it may be readily obtained elsewhere; and particularly

he

he has not attempted to ascertain the nomenclature of the ancients, both because of the difficulty that would attend such a labour, and because he is very doubtful of its utility.

In afcertaining the fpecies of plants, where feveral of the fame genus may be employed, he has likewife purposely omitted entering into any critical difcuffion refpecting their comparative fuperiority; thinking it enough for him to have marked, in the catalogue prefixed to his treatife, the botanical diftinction of the fpecies which he judged most fit to be employed.

Another omiffion, of a fimilar nature with the preceding, is the not giving any defcription of the particular medicines as they are employed, or fit to be employed. This, however, he acknowledges to have omitted because he could not do it fo completely and accurately as the authors to whom he refers, and whom he supposes his readers to have in their hands.

The omiffion of the chemical analysis of the feveral substances he thinks, and very juftly, will require no apology in the prefent age; but he doubts whether he fhall be fo eafily forgiven for frequently omitting the treatment of fubftances by the application of different menftruums, and for not mentioning the quantities of extract that are obtained from each of them. He admits that an attention to these circumftances is very neceflary in the pharmaceutic treatment of medicines; but he did not think it proper to increase the bulk of his work by details contained in books to which he refers, and which he wishes to recommend to all his readers. The books alluded to are the three following, viz. the Treatife of the Materia Medica by Dr. Lewis, as now published by Dr. Aikin; the Treatife of Petrus Jonas Bergius on the Materia Medica, taken from vegetables; and the Apparatus Medicaminum by the learned profeffor of Gottingen, Jo. Andreas Murray, knight of the royal order of Wafa.

Dr. Cullen's chief purpose in the prefent work is to give the principles upon which the various fubftances comprehended in the Materia Medica are to be judged of as medicines; to cor-rect the errors of former writers in that refpect; and to offer fome new principles and doctrines which appear to him to be neceflary. These doctrines are given partly in his general introduction, and partly in the reflections on the general operation of medicines, prefixed to the feveral chapters.

Such is the general plan of the work now before us, and fuch the particular motives which have actuated this learned and industrious author in the execution of it. We fhall now proceed to give a concife account of its different parts.

After a general hiftory of the Materia Medica, as it exifts in the writings of the Greek and Arabian phyficians, Dr. Cullen ENG. REV. VOL. XV. JAN. 1790.

C

traces

traces the progrefs of this science, through the various authors on the fubject, from the revival of learning in the fifteenth century to the present time. This part of the work discovers much reading and attentive obfervation; but the inferences deducible from the whole are chiefly that the Materia Medica, with all its accumulated acquifitions, has hitherto remained in a state of great imperfection; that fuperftition, both ancient and modern, obfervations too flight, and conclufions likewife too precipitate, had given rife to a multiplicity of errors, rendered venerable by long prefcription; and, in fhort, that there was ftill a neceffity for fuch a work as the present, to examine more strictly the mass of the Materia Medica, which has been reared by the ignorance of ages, and to establish the virtues of medicines by the only true and unerring teft, that of accurate obfervation and experience. In endeavouring to perform this useful undertaking, Dr. Cullen evinces a fcrupulous regard to fact, and a judgment too ftrong to be in the leaft degree influenced by the prejudice of authority; but, at the fame time, we are of opinion that, though he has exercised his critical talents with much ability in examining the writings of former authors, he treats them, in fome inftances, with a feverity of cenfure from which candour at leaft, if not justice, might have exempted them.

The author next proceeds to confider the action of medicines upon the body in general; concluding from obvious premises, that the peculiar effects of fubftances in general, or of those fubftances in particular which are called medicines, when applied to the human body, depend on their action upon its fentient and irritable parts. This naturally leads him to the confideration of temperaments, concerning which the theory of the ancient phyficians has long fince been defervedly exploded. To treat this fubject in a philosophical manner is a task attended with great difficulty, and would require very extenfive, as well as minute obfervation. Dr. Cullen, therefore, inftead of distinguishing temperaments by marking the internal and obfervable circumstances which are commonly combined together, proceeds to the inquiry in another way; and endeavours to confider those circumstances of the internal ftate of the human body which may give occafion to a difference in the ftate of the functions, and even in the external appearances which diftinguish different nen. Thefe circumftances our author refers to five general heads, according as they occur, Ift. In the ftate of the fimple folids; 2dly. In the ftate of the fluids; 3dly. In the proportion of folids and fluids in the body; 4thly. In the diftribution of the Auids; and, 5thly, In the ftate of the nervous power. Having treated of these feveral fubjects, he next inquires into the nature of particular temperaments and idiofyncrafies; as thefe likewife tend,

tend, though remotely, to account for the action of medicines upon the body in general.

In the fecond chapter of this part of the work the learned profeffor comes more-immediately to the fubject of pharmaceutical difquifition, and treats of the various means by which we arrive at the knowledge of the virtues of medicines. In profe cuting this inquiry he examines into the use of chemical refolution in investigating the virtues of different fubftances; the use of botanical affinities in afcertaining the medical virtues of plants; the confideration of the fenfible qualities of substances, as pointing out their medical virtues; and, laftly, the knowledge of the virtues of medicines by experience.

Dr. Cullen, after giving a fhort account of the most proper plan for a treatife on the Materia Medica, prefents us with a dictionary of the general terins employed by writers on that fubject. This chapter, which includes the catalogue of medicinal fubftances, is of great length, and may indeed be confidered as liable to the charge of redundancy. For the inftances are fo few in which our author employs general terms in any peculiar acceptation, that either the latter might have been defined occafionally, when they occurred, or the dictionary been reduced to a very small number of articles.

We next meet with a copious treatise of aliments; which, after some observations on the cookery of meats, is followed by a chapter on drinks, fucceeded by another of condiments. The article of which our author treats moft copiously is that of milk, which he seems to have confidered with more than common attention. As our limits will not permit us to detail the obfervations on this fubject, we fhall only mention that Dr. Cullen endeavours to invalidate the notion of the chyle alone affording the matter of milk, immediately on its reception into the blood-veffels; a doctrine which we think he impugns by ftrong arguments, founded upon facts and the established principles of phyfiology.

Our ingenious author, having finished all his preliminary subjects, introduces us to the Materia Medica in the beginning of the fecond volume, through the whole of which it extends. He diftinguishes medicines into the various claffes ufual in systems of this kind; and prefixes to each chapter an account of the mode of operation affigned to the particular clafs of which they respectively confift. The firft is the tribe of aftringents, confidered by Dr. Cullen as diftinct from that of the tonics, which forms the second chapter of the volume. Next follow emollients, corrofives, ftimulants, fedatives, refrigerants, antifpafmodics, &c. If we except the Peruvian bark, opium, camphire, mercury, and a few other articles, of which our author treats