_The British and Foreign Medical Review, or Quarterly Journal of
Practical Medicine and Surgery. Edited by John Forbes, M.D., F. R. S.,
and John Conolly, M.D. (American Edition.) Nos. I, II and III: For
January, April, July, 1836._
If any augury of success is to be drawn from desert, this work may
fairly be regarded as likely soon to assume a vanward place amongst
its competitors for favor with the medical world. Whether we view the
quantity or the quality of its matter—the number, variety, richness,
or power of its articles—the comprehensiveness of its plan or the
judiciousness of its arrangement—it equally strikes us as possessing
the very first degree of merit.
Each number consists of four grand divisions: I. Analytical and
Critical Reviews; II. Bibliographical Notices; III. Selections from
Foreign Journals; IV. Medical Intelligence. So wide is the scope of
each one of these divisions, and so copious its _filling up_, that a
steady reader of the Review can hardly fail to know {785} every
material step that medical science takes—every important
discovery—every valuable publication, and almost every instructive
case. Not the least commendable trait in the work, is the notice it
takes of _foreign_ medicine; the attention it bestows upon the state
of the profession and upon medical men, medical works, and medical
institutions—not only in England—not only in Great Britain—not only in
Europe—but in America, and even in Asia. It practically recognizes a
great commonwealth of knowledge, pervading the whole earth; each
province alike concerned, and alike entitled to be lighted and cheered
by the sun of science; a widespread fraternity of intellect and
benevolence, of which membership is limited to no climate or
hemisphere. Thus we see notices of the state of medicine in Spain,
Russia and Denmark; and of the medical journals now published in Great
Britain, France, Italy, Denmark, Germany, the Colonies, and America.
_En passant_, we state the number of these: in Germany 11; in Italy 5;
in Denmark 4; in the United States 8; in Rio Janeiro 1; in Kingston
(Jamaica) 1; in Calcutta 1; in France (including hebdomadal and
tri-weekly papers,) 17. In Great Britain it seems there are but _six_.
We cannot too much admire the sound sense and enlarged philanthropy
breathed in the following passage of the British Medical Review,
occurring just after it has bespoken a regular exchange with its
foreign contemporaries.
“It is our anxious desire and earnest hope to make it a freer medium
of communication and a closer bond of union, between the members of
the medical profession in all civilized countries, than has hitherto
existed. It is delightful to all who cultivate the arts of peace, to
live in times when the nations of the earth may freely communicate
with each other, without restraint or difficulty: and it is doubly
delightful to those who, like the members of our profession, are
striving only for what is good, to find themselves associated in their
labors with the virtuous and the wise of every land, differing indeed
in the external and unessential characters of language, customs, and
civil polity, but identified in the common desire to improve the
physical, moral, and intellectual condition of man, and consequently,
to augment the happiness, and exalt the dignity of the human race.”
_No. I, p. 230_.
It pleases our pride as Americans, to observe the large space which
our country evidently occupies in the opinion of the enlightened men
who edit this Review. The physicians of the United States and their
works, in its pages, fill twice the room, we believe, of those in any
other foreign country, not excepting France or Germany; and there are
repeated and unequivocal proofs, that the inconsiderable figure which
this, like other departments of American science and literature, has
hitherto made in British eyes, is now to be entirely changed. Mark the
conciliatory and fraternal tone of what follows:
“The energetic character of the American people, whom we feel proud to
regard as derived from a common ancestry with ourselves, and their
astonishing progress during the last half century in the arts and
sciences, are no less conspicuous in the actual state of medicine
there, than in the other branches of human knowledge and social
amelioration. Were we, however, not resolved to make the state of
medical science among our North American brethren better known and
more justly appreciated in England, we should almost be ashamed to
confess how little we ourselves know of it, and how little is really
known of it by the great majority of our best informed physicians and
surgeons. While the medicine of France is familiar to most men of any
education among us, and that of Germany and Italy is known to many,
the condition of our science throughout the vast territories and in
the immense cities of the United States, although recorded in our own
language, and cultivated in the same spirit as by ourselves, is
scarcely known to us at all. A striking proof of this is, that in some
recent histories of medicine published in this country, by men of the
very first talents and acquirements, scarcely any notice is taken of
America, or of the improvements or discoveries for which we are
indebted to American physicians and surgeons. An equally striking
evidence is the extremely limited importation into this country of
American books, and the non-circulation of American Journals among us.
On the contrary, the extreme eagerness with which English books are
received in America, is no less strikingly illustrated by the well
known fact that all good works on British medicine are not only
imported into, but are immediately republished in America, and
circulated in vast numbers.” “Dr. Combe’s admirable work on Hygiene,
has not only been reprinted in America, but circulated to the amount
of 10,000.”
“The zeal with which medicine is cultivated in America, is equally
manifested by the number and variety of the medical journals published
there; and we are bound in fairness to add, that the original
communications and criticisms contained in such of them as we have met
with, sufficiently prove that it is not a zeal without knowledge.”
_Id. p. 228_.
The foregoing extracts are worth making and worth reading, for two
especial reasons: first, because in speaking so kindly of us, they
tend to awaken a mutual throb of kindness in our own bosoms, and so to
strengthen and multiply the ties of international affection; and
second, because by showing us how insignificant we are in the
civilized world, they severely and justly rebuke our national vanity,
pampered so long by our Fourth of July orators and newspaper
paragraphists, into the belief that we are “the greatest and most
enlightened people on earth.”
Among the American physicians whose names are brought with praise
before the British public in the Review before us, are Drs. Dunglison,
Geddings, and Smith, of Baltimore, and Jackson (senior and junior,) of
Boston. Though Dr. Dunglison is an Englishman born, we claim his
professional merits chiefly for America, who has fostered, developed
and matured, by appreciating and rewarding them. We sympathize in the
gratification he must feel, at the emphatic and pre-eminent tribute
rendered him in the preface, where he is classed _with_, yet _above_,
the distinguished physicians of Berlin, Hamburg, Geneva, Madrid, and
St. Petersburg, to whom obligations are acknowledged for valuable
assistance.
In No. 2, is a very favorable review of Dr. Dunglison’s late work on
the Elements of Hygiene. Like his prior and large work on Human
Physiology, (of which, as well as of his Medical Dictionary, America
is the birth place,) this valuable treatise is rather _technical_ than
_popular_; being designed more for medical than for general readers.
In the same article, is a detailed notice of the before mentioned
essay of Dr. Combe, on Hygiene—or, to give its proper title, “The
Principles of Physiology applied to the Preservation of Health, and to
the Improvement of Physical and Mental Education.” This is the work of
which the Reviewer says 10,000 copies have been circulated in the
United States; but as it has been stereotyped by the Harpers, and made
a number of their “Family Library,” besides publication in other
forms, we question if 20,000 copies be not nearer the truth. The whole
range of physical authorship, we have long believed, does not present
an equal to this modest little book of Dr. Combe’s, for curious,
interesting, and valuable truth: not to physicians alone, or to {786}
scholars, or to gentlemen, or to school-mistresses, but to every class
of mankind, from the President of a College to the laborer in “his
clouted shoon.” The topics it particularly treats of, are the
structure and functions of the _skin_—of the _muscular system_—the
_lungs_—the _bones_—and the _nervous system_, with the _mental
faculties_, supposed to be connected with it. Annexed to each of these
subjects are rules, “by the observance of which, each of them may be
kept in health, and may conduce to the general health of the body.”
“And thus the reader is led to wholesome customs, by being taught the
_reason_ of their being wholesome.”
It is now admitted by all intelligent persons, except those captious
and querulous praisers of time past, who abound in every age, that
medicine is far advanced in a great and most salutary reformation, the
progress of which is still _onward_. In nothing is this reform more
conspicuous—nay, in nothing does it more _consist_—than in the
profession’s now aiming to preserve health by timely precautions,
instead of being satisfied to restore it when lost. In fact it is not
now _medicine_ so much as _hygiene_; it is the art of preserving
rather than the art of healing; _prevention_ rather than _cure_. And
as much superior as prevention proverbially is to cure—so much better
is the present plan of guarding the health by a judicious diet,
seasonable clothing, dwellings properly warmed and aired, and a strict
attention to cleanliness—than the old one, of letting luxury and
debauchery have their course, and then trusting to expel their
crudities and counteract their poison by physic. If the expelling
agent—the antidote—had been always infallible (and alas, how many
grave-yards prove the contrary!)—the _wear_ and _tear_ of
constitution, produced by the action of the disease, and even of the
remedy, was a clear _balance_ against the old system.
Dr. Combe’s work is emphatically an emanation of the reformed school
of medicine; and though in that school the names of Broussais, Louis
and Jackson may be more united by fame, we deem “Combe on Mental
Health”[1] to have borne away from them all the palm of _usefulness_.
[Footnote 1: This is the title usually affixed to the back of Dr. C.’s
book.]
In the three numbers of the Review, are many articles which we would
fain mention, but _all_ would exceed our space, and we do not like the
task of further selection. Some idea of the merits of the work (and
incidentally of Dr. C.’s) was all we aimed to convey.
It is republished (quarterly) in New York, by W. Jackson, and in
Baltimore by William Neal, who are authorized to receive
subscriptions. The price is $5 _per annum_.