The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-12 00:00:00

elicited by the collision of a considerable number of

medical heads. The law is proverbial for its uncer-

;ainty, but it appears from the subjoined extract that
he Medical Faculty have not yet entirely made up their
minds as to the modus operandi of certain pharmaceu-

tical compounds :
" He (Dr. Whiting) would suggest small doses of the anti-
monium tartarisatum, therefore, in these cases, about one.
twelfth to one-twentieth of a grain. He had given it in this
manner some years to a child, and he found it improve the
appetite and increase the strength of the patient, and he had
since employed it as a tonic, and considered it one of the best
we possess.
" Dr. Negri confirmed the statements of Dr. Whiting as to
the efficacy of antimonium tartarisatum in small doses in hoop-
ing-cough, but denied, most positively, its efficacy as a tonic ;
on the contrary, he believed it to be one of the most debilitant
medicines we possess, and it could only be considered a tonic
in the same way that bleeding, by lessening congestion, would
relieve the circulation.
Dr. Whiting explained that he only considered it a tonic
in the small doses he had mentioned, but Dr. Negri declared
he believed it to act as a debilitant in all doses."

We have now little room to spare, but we cannot
resist the temptation of extracting a short passage or
two from a paper headed " Remarks, on the Paper
read by Sir HENRY HALFORD at the College of Phy-

sicians.

The learned President of the College of Physicians
had chosen for the subject of that and the previous
lecture, certain details respecting the death of sundry
distinguished individuals, and there can be no doubt
that his audience were satisfied that greatness affords
no exemption from the common lot of mortality. Bluff
King Hal with his dropsy, WOLSEY with his dy-
sentery, persecuting MARY and her double entendre,
&c. &c. are duly paraded before the members of the
College Physicians, and their Right Reverend, Noble,
and Right Honourable and Honourable visitors. The
late Duke of GLOUCESTER'S disease closes the tedious
catalogue ; and Sir HENRY did not let slip the oppor-
tunity of pronouncing a funeral oration over his Royal
Highness ; upon which the reviewer justly remarks :
" His post-obit praises of the late Duke sounded like flat-
tery, were in bad taste, and should, at all events, have been
confined to that portion of his character, of which Sir Henry
had had doubtless better opportunity of judging than many of
his hearers. The public character of the Duke the public
knows without any flourish of trumpets from the College of
Physicians."
The Reviewer then proceeds thus :

" Of such materials, then, was the learned President's paper
composed, and were Sir Henry a man of mediocre attainments,
and driven for lack of genius to make his bill of fare a bill of
mortality we should not quarrel with his taste, or condemn his
spectral cavalcades of post-mortems, however we might deem
their exhibition fitter for the bone-house than for the arena on
which they figured. We should have regarded this propen-
sity for parading before our eyes the phantoms of the dead,
each with his scroll of evil under his arm, as a matter not
amenable to our criticism, had such propensity been fraught
with no evil, nor lessened the utility of the man. But know-
ing as we do that Sir Henry possesses a highly cultivated
mind, and talent of no ordinary stamp, we feel called upon to
say, that his late lecture was not the homage science ex-
pected from him, more especially as she had lifted him to
proud pre-eminence, and fixed him on a pedestal, whence he
looks down on his humbler brethren. Such a lecture, we re-
peat, was not the offering she expected, and Sir Henry would
do well to reflect, ere he delivers another, on the claim which
the public has on those blessed with the power and opportu-
nity to benefit it. Sir Henry well knows that the business of
science, as well as of life, is to move forward, and must be
aware that it would be more in keeping with the scientific dig-
nity belonging to his order, to dilate upon some topic of more
general interest and advantage than the one chosen. Were
our humble advice to be received, we would counsel the learned
President to abandon to the gravedigger the musty carcases
of olden time, which he has now, for the second time, raised
from their rest, and ponder, as Sir H. Davy and a host of
other illustrious benefactors to science have pondered, on what
is truly great and useful.
" If, as we have heard reported, Sir Henry, sometime ago,
proposed some scheme of medical reform to his brethren of
the College, which they scouted, might not such a theme be
advantageously considered on the next occasion? It would
be, if not quite so grateful to the ears of his auditory, as the
history of men whose brains are out,' more instructive, and
the moment chosen for its exposition would give it additional
effect.
" We conclude by assuring the learned President, that the
silky tissue of his eloquence, more particularly when applied
to the superfluous elucidation of what is already sufficiently
clear, is not, in these times, the peg on which to hang either
popular applause or the respect of the profession. Something
more solid, more beneficial to the age in which he lives, is
expected from his acknowledged talent; and if such good be
incompatible with the empty tinkling of sounding sentences
and nicely balanced period, it should supersede them."
There may, perhaps, be a little causticity in these
remarks, but they are just, and every one who has the
interest and the reputation of the College of Phy-
sicians
at heart, must acquiesce in their propriety,

Brussels and German Papers have been received,
with intelligence from Madrid to the Ist inst. Their
contents are important, and will be found in another

column.