The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-24 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Life awl Adventures of a Clever Woman,.
By Mrs. Trollope. 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.
Tito numerous readers of Mrs. Trollope's works
will, no doubt, be doubly attracted.by the title of
the present tale, which seems especially charac-
teristic. But they will be disappointed, for though
it would seem to be a congenial subject, affording
full scope for all the lively sketches and satirical
portraits which are the forte of the clever autho-
ress, neither plot, style, nor sketches are worthy of
the writer of " The Barnabys."i The life of the
Clever Woman, who is the spoiled child of a wealthy
father, is passed in attaining a high position in
society. This is her great ambition, and she ex-
pends her time, money, and t nergies in striving to
collect a large circle of fashionable acquaintances,
who should all look up to her with admiration and
respect. In this laudable pursuit she succeeds, but
as she is but a heartless abrupt person after all,
and shows no talent save that of manoeuvring and
self-aggrandisement, the reader is not much in-
terested in her successes or her failures. A limited circle is introduced to us, consider
ingver they opportunities which present themselves for a variety
of sketches. We are told that the heroine gave
grand entertainments and tht she made many
friends, but we , that
which do seo nothing of them. Those
each other
mere appear, with foil- exceptions, rival
inl their repelling qualities. They
are not 'y worldly people : they seemto have
no redeeming attributes. Truly, if they are drawn
from real life, the writer's experience of society I
must be similar to that which produced the two
philosophers of old, who laughed and wept at the
follies and crimes of humanity. It needs the lan-
tern of Diogenes to discover an honest maai-aanong,
them. Almost the only one introduced is Mon-
tagne Herbert, who appears at first as a middle-
aged man, but at the conclusion marries the young
protegee of the heroine. Even he, however, is not
a very striking character, • for though very poor,
with first a young sister and subSecfuently a wife
and family to support, he does not appear to do
anything-to increase his income, but endeavours to
reduce his expenses, lamenting over his poverty.
Among, minor faults of style which might be easily
avoided, we may mention that of extreme inaccu-
racy with respect to dates and ages:_) It is true it
matters little what is the age of heroes and heroines,
but it is perplexing in the extreme to be perpetually
told and told diefereirtly each time. Mrs. Trollope
has too often proved her ability to make us con-
tented with inferior works from her pen, and she
has too widely extended a reputation, and too large
a circle of readers, to make it a matter of indiffer-
ence what she writes. She owes it to herself and
to the public to be more careful of her well-earned
popularity. It would be unjust to say that there
is no talent or interest in the present work, but
there is not so much as one would be led to anti-
cipate from the title-page. The following extract
is from a conversation between the heroine and her
father, at the commencement of her endeavours to
be the centre of the fashionable circle, and will give
a good idea of her opinions and character :
"It is very true, papa, I assure you, that I do pass
many hours in thinking what sort of person I should
like to be, and what sort of a life I should wish to lead,
when I grow from a mere girl into a woman. What I
should like would be always to have just such a nice
house as this, just as nicely furnished, and everything
about me just as elegant and as comfortable as you have
made it here. But even that would not content me, papa,
unless I could contrive to make myself in some degree
worthy of such a beautiful borne • and even if I could do
that, it would not content me unless I had a good set of
elegant and well-educated people as my friends and ac-
quaintances. My greatest idea of earthly happiness,
dear papa, is having to preside in such a house as this
with such a circle of friends as I have described."
Mr. Morris felt and looked delighted.
"My dearest Charlotte," he replied, "I really don't
think it possible you could have said any thing more
culated to give rne pleasure. Tho wishes you express
are the exact echo of my own ; and I must say, that,
for a young person of your age, I don't think it possi-
ble they could have been better expressed."
"Well, then, dearest papa," she resumed, "being
thus happily agreed about the object we have in view,
let us hope that we shall be equally so as to the manner
of obtaiuirg it. It is impossible not to see that there
are some difficulties before us. While I was still a chill,
and while you were still occupied by my education, in
short, before we came to this house, papa, I never saw
anybody, you know, in the way of acquaintance, who
could be of the very slightest use in obtaining the object
we have in view ; but your fortunately making acquain-
tance with Mr. Knighton has opened a way for us,
which, if it be not our own fault, will lead us to all we
wish. I think that while you were playing whist there
the other night, I saw more than you could do of the
style of the company. Small as they called their party,
there were several people of decided fashion. Lady Wil-
cox Smith is a very near relation ; and that elegant Miss
Herbert, Louisa Knighton told me, moves in the very
highest circles. But in order to profit as much as pos-
sible by such a lucky chance as that Which has brought
us acquainted with the Knightons, we surely ought to
make ourselves as intimate with them a'3 possible."
"And so we will, my dear," replied her father, very
cordially.
"But how, papa ?" replied Charlotte, mournfully
"Before any real intimacy can be established between
people," she added, "there must be a mutual wish for
it."

" Very true, dear," returned her admiring father,
"but I cant see any good reason to doubt that it is so
in the present case."
"To a certain degree you are right, papa," was her
answer, pronounced in a way that very decidedly show-
ed her to be no vain boaster when she said she thought
egood deal ; her eye, her voice, her attitude, all bore
evidence of it. " Papa," she continued, "as much per-
sonal liking as I really feel for the Knightons, I truly
believe they feel for me. 'We all chat away most plea-
santly together, and when people do this, evidently
without an effort, they cannot, you know, feel any great
dislike to each other. But that is no proof of the in-
timacy which I 'am anxious to establish ; nor do I
believe that such an intimacy is ever established, unless
each of the parties is useful to th'e 'other."
Mr. Morris looked at his young daughter both with
surprise and admiration. •
" Charlotte I" lie replied, taking her'hand in his, and
gazing at her earnestly and fondly ; " Charlotte ! you
are perfectly right ; and I beg your pardon, my dear,
for having treated your observations so lightly, Men
may be better fitted to manage the affairs of the nation
than women, and I have no wish whatever to see you
obtain a seat in Parliament, for instance ; but in the do-
'nestle politics of private life, I sincerely believe that the
judgment of one clever woman is of more practical worth
than that of a dozen men. Nou hive nay full permission
on the present occasion, and on all future occasions of
the same kind, to any extent that you may think right
and judicious ; and, moreover, I shall trust implicitly to
your judgment as to the manner of profiting from their
wish to be useful to you in return ; and I assure you,
dearest Charlotte, that it is a great pleasure, and a great
comfort to me, to find that I can so safely trust to your
judgment."

The Zoist.—The distinguishing peculiarity of The
Zoist among our many eminent and diversified
monthly and quarterly periodicals is that of its
contents containing the largest amount of novel
and surprising information. This was inseparable
from the very nature of the publication. It was
inevitable from the singularity of the scheme in
which it originated. It was guaranteed by the
singular ability of the man entrusted with the duties
of its editorship. It was plainly enough intimated
by that quotation from Gall selected as its motto
—" This is Truth, though opposed to the Philoso-
phy of Ages." It was plainly announced in the
very title of The Zoist, as a Journal of Cerebral
Physiology and Mesmerism—considered in their
applications to human welfare. Systematically and
energetically carrying out the views, of which it is
now universally regarded as the most remarkable
organ, The Zoist has successfully entered its
twelfth volume; the present number being the
forty-sixth of its publication. In testimony that
its ability has in no way fallen off, but rather ad-
vanced and ripened during the process of ;its de-
velopment, we need no more here than quote from
the number just issued the subjoined interest-
ing and noteworthy paragraphs. They are in the
form of a " Note" by Dr. Elliotson, on two cases
described by Mr. Rawe, of Hampstead—

Nfirst is one such
iolTbsoe
"These two cases are DR
invaluable.ELL
d u and plan of diet and general mans as medical men have always in abundance under their care,
"NOTE B T
ge-
then another . and most frequently with un-
satisfactory and
except that such are veryprofitable trying first one r g .
satisfactory results
to
hasth the
stipractitionero b
a pati e.l a t The,
efamily c or rr
eh anbfitteuna la
nmde dl incnagl , aadnvdi s eirs
wearied with the everlasting complainings : and others are
continually consulted or triedin for longer or shorter periods.
The drugs taken these cases is prodigious : and
trading writers of books on indigestion and nervous com-
plaints, like those who write on gout and rheumatism, and
those who write on urinary affections and cutaneous dis-
eases and affections of the chest, reap a plentiful harvest
by advertising their books with their names incessantly,
and thus catching the eye of unfortunate valetudinarians,
as the advertising tailors and other tradesmen so well
know how to catch customers. The advertisement of
medical books on common disorders is a genteel and cun-
ning way of imitating Messieurs Moses, Solomon, Mechi,
Hyam, Savory, and others, who legitimately advertise as
tradesmen, and in a direct and open manner for customers,
who are their patients. Some of these medical authors
succeed in getting passages from their books that are most
likely to excite the attention of unfortunate persons with
dyspeptic, nervous, gouty, rheumatic, urinary, cutaneous,
and chest affections, inserted from timo to time into both
the London and provincial newspapers. Writers on indi-
vidual diseases are thought to know the most about them:
but generally know nothing more of them than the rest of
the profession, and are often moreover less acquainted
with general practical medical science and the powers and
general proper administration of remedies—aknowledge
of all which is indispensable to the treatment of individual
diseases.

"The second case, . though pronounced by the medical
practitioner to be flow of blood to the head, was evidently
in the attack witnessed by Mr. Rawe a fit of exhaustion of
nervous energy, and calculated to be injured by all debili-
tating means. Ammonia, and not the lancet, was at least
at that time tko mitabla mucky, hajninagablOPOlNAS 1111Y0

Trrl

....—_,
been destroyed in all kinds of diseases by bleeding and other debilitating means ; and innumerable persons, though not
killed, been made worse or uncured, in neuralgic seizures,
mistaken for inflammation; in giddiness, drowsiness, throb-
bing, heat, palsy, pains, and other 'affections of the head,
&c., ascribed to determination and congestion of blood,
when they are dependent upon debility, and congestion is
the effect of the nervous affection. The distiriction is often
easy ; but often requires a very careful consideration of
all the present symptoms, and all the previous' history of
the patient, and a thorough knowledge of the :iarieties of
the same disease. The sacrifice of hunehis ife by his igno-
rance must have been enormous. But Vow" medical men
run into the opposite extreme, and lose lives or cause
diseases to become protracted or notebecured at all, by not
bleeding when they ought--
"Dam vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt."
" When called to a celebrated writer a few years ago, I
found he had been labouring many days under inflamma-
tiou of the bowels, and been treated with merely a little
rhubarb, and similar things without advantage. His
state was highly dangerous, and I gave it as my opinion
that he would certainly, die if not bled, and might even
if he wore bled. The practitioner remarked that he had
n t bled a patient for two years, and that the gentleman
was very bulky. I replied that I would whit and regulate
the quantity and take all the responsibility upon myself.
The practitioner
theacti patient.mosttionerl allow
courteously
more blood t
yielded toe flow aftermywishes
and bled
the pulse was slightly, affected ,it proved to be in a
highly inflammatory state, as I roriretold. The patient was
at once relieved, and with suitable medicines and diet
from that moment advanted to perfect health. I myself
1 hal a very violent inflammation in my chest during last
November. Nothing controlled it : and I one night
begged a medical friend to bleed me. About twenty ounces
were removed, and from that moaiont I recovered. In
March I had a second still• severer attack, I went on
without relief for some time, and then begged the same
friend to bleed me one evening. Vie loss of lee; than a
pint was required on this occasion, and the results were all
the same as before—immediate relief and perfect cure ;
and I took not a particle of medicine. I had never been
so ill in my life as each time before I was bled. On casually
mentioning this to a surgeon of St. Bartholomew's Hos-
pital, ho said that he was sure that no other ,person was
bled in London on the day when I was bled. Perhaps
he was right, for such, are the extremes of the practice
of medicine, and it is the same with surgery. Some years
ago, patients were bled for almost everything: and people
feared that they should not continue in health unless they
were bled.twice a year. The surgeries of country practi-
tionees were filled at spring and fall with healthy persons
attending to be bled. ``
But in bleeding not a drop more should be taken away
than is required for the purpose : the,ege and powers of the
patient souls' be considered : and his
internal sensations, as
fringing in the ears, giddiness, confusion, dimness
of sight,
moments
amtness, nausea, and debility, inquired into every few
: and the pulse constantly. felt, that the least
diminution of strength orJ quickness, or irregularity, or
increased quickness of it, may be noticed, as well as any
relief in the pain or in other symptoms. If any of these
effects takes place, the flow should be arrested : and if they
cease, and the original state of things returns, and the
patient is not relieved; the blood should be allowed to flow
again, and according to the same rules. Sometimes none
of these things occurs and there is no relief : and yet the
quantity of blood taken is as great as we think the patient
can with prop4ety lose. Here the flow should be arrested.
The effects emfmerated, few or more, occasionally begin
after the arm is bound up, and thus relief is not obtained
immediately, but still obtained. The patient should be bled
in the upright position, because the loss of less blood in
the sitting or standing position produces all the effects
described than if the patient lies ; and to remove the fainte
ness, &c., we have then in general merely to lay him down.
We should always endeavour to accomplish our purpose
without the loss of one drop more than is absolutely
required : and thus will seldom be under the necessity of
bleeding a second time, or at any rate a third. All this I
anxiously inculcated when I first even began to lecture in
St. Thomas's Hospital, between twenty and thirty years
ago, and I protested against the enormous and repeated
bleedings practised by some through inattention to these
rules. It is shocking to read the deluges of blood that
some writers boast of having perpetrated in curing their
patients. Many lam sure feel the effects of great loss of
blood long and perhaps for life, and not unfrequently have
some disease induced which shortens their life considerably.
"So with drugs. Not a particle more should be taken
than is necessary to relieve or cure the patient. The aim
should be to benefit the patient with the smallest number
of grains or drops : and it is still better if we attain our
object without any drugs at all—by diet and general ma-
nagement alone. Yet the sound practitioner, who aims at
this, will augment his doses steadily, and continuously,
till he obtains the good which he desires, or sees that by
going on ho shall produce a threatening of some effects
which he does not, desire. In the latter case, he will in-
stantly reduce the dose or omit the medicine altogether for
a time.
"If it is wrong to give one grain or drop, or half a grain
or drop, more than indispensable, it is equally wrong to
give up a medicine till it has been
taken in such quantities
and for such a period as to have proved that the system has
felt its power. The sound practitioner will appear to the
ignorant sometimes to give doses ridiculously small, and
sometimes doses preposterously large. He will not boast
of giving large doses or small doses, but aim at giving the
proper dose.
" Some positively have a fixed dose' for each medicine.
When iodide of potassium, one of the most useful 'medicines
ever discovered, was first used thirty years ago, Sir --,
being unluckily prejudiced against it as he is now against
mesmerism, frightened some of my patients and for a time
deterred them from its use, though they afterwards saw he
was wrong. When its use became established, he and Dr.
C-- never gave more than two grains for a dose, and told
all patients and practitioners that this was the largest dose
which was proper. Now there can be no fixed dose of any
medicine : the effect of every medicine, and not the quan-
tity, should be considered. Sometimes a quarter of a
grain, nay an eighth, of this very medicine, is the utmost
quantity borne : and sometimes no result is obtained from
less than very many grains. I have explained to patients,
and always successfully, this common sense view of the ad-
ministration of this and other drugs, and they have always
seen the error of this dictum of Sir -- -- and Dr.
C—. Indeed it is now happily disregarded. I recollect
that one day I met Dr. C— in consultation upon one case
and the late Dr. H— upon another—both gentlemen
being physicians of St. --'s Hospital and teaching the
same pupils. In each case, iodide of potassium was agreed
upon as the medicine. Dr. C--- said he always gave, as
did Sir -- --, two grains of it and never more, even if
it produced no effect. Dr. H— said he always began
with ten grains. Now to begin with a large dose was as
improper as to continue at one fixed small dose. Yet both
these gentlemen passed as very sensible men.
" While many'practitioners give medicines in inefficient
doses, others relinquish them before they, on account of
the smallness of the dose or the short period of their ad-
ministration, have done any good : and thus are changing
their prescriptions incessantly : and the patient fancies he
has tried everything, whereas ho has really tried nothing,
and has lost all his time. One of the physicians at Uni-
versity College Hospital, who was not over educated or
wise, but violently opposed mesmerism, declaring that he
had never seen it and bad always turned his eyes away
from my patients while they were being mesmerised in the
wards, generally made a full sweep at every visit or two
of all the drugs he had prescribed at the previous visit.
When prescriptions aro continually changed, either the
practitioner is usually prescribing foolishly, or is baffled
at any rate : though of course sometimes changes in the
symptoms require such changes of medicines.
" The public have no conception of the absurd mode in
which medicines are administered by men who have an
abundance of practice, or of the oceans of liquid physic
and mountains of pills and powders which are swallowed
without having, either through being unfit for the case or
improper in the doses or shortness of the period of admi-
nistration, the smallest chance of benefiting the patient.
Sir Benjamin Brodie twenty years ago in consultation re-
marked to me how badly medicines are in general pre.
scribed, adding that very feW prescribed them so properly
as I did. Yet lam sure I never prescribe them otherwise
( than as the very humblest common sense suggests,—such
j common sense as every person, ono would suppose, is en-
dowed with.
" Till very lately, it was the custom to give cathartioe
as improperly as to bleed ; to give them when they were,
like bleeding, absolutely injurious, or to give them
thetoo
violently or often, a pill and black draught being. .
Isitiaepclaesoefs
to many
worry practitionersth e
bowels in
incessantlyall
with: stnhdeminwchrehe;
naturegood
h oorus
eg ought
yto i
incessantly
stfat
tlaloney
whipping : ju just as a
or
-t d •
r i, somepnr
rip persons o
it,ns sapnodi l :
poor dear child by
nature of a chance. It is by no means requisite that the
every twenty-four hours
incessantly punishing it so as o, deprive
bowels of every person should act
nor, because they are sluggish, that aperients should 4;
given, and time not be allowed13
nature, to who, if trusted,
,
will generally in a day or two more do her duty. Thin
error I have always protested against.
" Another prevalent folly has been to prescribe mercury
an aperient. This is one of the
but
tnot required on every occasion of
best
n
of
f occasions
medicines,
an aperient being proper. Yet till lately (and too generally
at present it is the case) every prescription for an aperient
pill contained mercury, when some simple aperient, with
no drug calculated to get into the system as well as to act
on the bowelsyr,ifieveararrsesrdtchgtoeuiliritved;e.
‘liver was
tars
etahtme feanvtowuriutedoirregancted;
to
twerehirt
late years the kidneys have had an equal run arid
it. diseases‘ Forof
I am sick of hearing about renal diseases andalbuminous
urine, which are serving at present to show the folly and
weakness of too many medical,
teen, and to answer the
purpose of too many of those whose ways are those of
qe:oltcetdrinste
quacks. Above twenty years ago I steadily opposed the
ruwchtuierhals i.tah t albumen
kidn in the urine indi.
pd ri
euenag e peu
of the
firmly, because I rested on carefuleeyb.
ser I
aktept my griound
now
this fancy is given up. But disease of
the lcli '
kidney alis een.
tinually declared to exist when the result proves that it did
not exist. If it really exists as one item in a list of affec-
tions, then are the rest continually declared to depend
upon it, and important diseases of other organs slighted,
and it is set up as the great enemy for attack, although in
structural disease of the kidney medicine can in general do
little or nothing, and frequently is most mischievously em-
ployed. How long this nephromania will last I cannot
guess. The mosmero-phobia will soon be beaten."
There is no necessity for comment upon the fore-
going quotations.

A NEW PLANIIT.—At 11.45 mean time last night Mr.
J. R. Hind discovered an object shining like a star of
the tenth magnitude, or rather brighter, which proves
to be another new member of the group of minor planets.
It is almost exactly on the ecliptic, about midway be-
tween two stars of the fifth magnitude-29 and 32 of
Platnsteed in Capricornus. The observed positions are
as follow :
Mean Time. Right Ascension. North Polar Mat.
h. in. s. h. m. a. d. in. a.
July 22 at 11.55.55 21.9.50.7 106 20 27
---- 13.42.55 21.9.47.29 105 20 49. S
ROYAL COLLEGE or SuRGEONS.—The following gen-
tlemen having undergone the necessary examinations for
Bristol ;
ani}l.
peanerky Calvert
the diploma were admitted members of the College at
the meeting of the Court of Examiners, on the 21st
et Corn.
pony's service ; Thomas Steers Hutchinson, iin3asrtn.
e:t—t,Mrineesnsrs.suJiaame
Peninsular
and
Curtis,d
Oriental B ri
son, Moore.
place, Kennington ; Thomas James Biddle
James Bowyer Baker, Hargrave • • ' army ;
, iNT ortnamptonshire ;
Alexander Macallen Carr, Royal Ophthalmic
Archibald Macdonald Garden, Roil Hospital ;
pany a service, Bengal ; Thomas. East India Com.
Edwin Jones, Blackfriars-road 'Watson, Bristol •
Australia ; Otho Frederick' , Edward Cally Ryall,
William Pearl, Box.ne, SuffolkVitalis. Constantinople;
wold, Yorkshire ;
and ; John Skaife, Easing-
ton, Armagh, At the William Reed, Newtown, Hamil.
Charles Edward Stillman same meeting of the court, Mr.
Carl,
..., passed his ezaraiziation for
'`'` ""!awlaVe