In the second class we see the asthenic cough, by which Dr. Brown means consumption; and apoplexy. In each case we must use active stimulants. In the latter we have said they must soon be employed, but not without previously lessening the quantity of fluids in the head, clearing the bowels with the most active laxatives, and establishing some drain to prevent the secondary accumulation. Of these precautions not a word is said, and without them the physician will not be very successful. We know this, for we have witnessed the events, and we alluded to them in the article of apoplexy, when we spoke of the accumulation of stimulants, till it was uncertain to what the relief, or, more often, the failure was owing.

Of the fatal consequence of the stimulating plan in consumption, we have unfortunately had too many instances. With the best management the picture is gloomy; with the methods proposed it is deeply darkened. If there is any more striking feature than another in this complaint, it is increased irritability of the arterial system, and a larger proportion of oxygen in the fluids, with its accompanying irritation. Every meal of an animal nature increases the heat, the smallest quantity of wine or spirits raises it to a greater degree; and when again cooled, the patient sinks with languor and debility. Yet this is the disease treated with all the warmth of Brunonian stimulus! We are free to own that the lowering system has been carried too far; and that while we were guarding against fever, we neglected properly supporting the strength. The whole subject we shall have occasion to state at length, with the necessary distinctions; but the plan sanctioned by experience will be found far, very far distant from the practice recommended by Dr. Brown. Nor is the change in the plan to be attributed to him. It was suggested by experience, before the splendor of his coruscations had reached this country.

Of the gout we shall not again speak. Undoubtedly the system may be brought too low; and Dr. Brown, we suspect, would raise his arthritics too high. He himself suffered severely when he changed his free plan of living to a more abstemious one; but his case is not to be brought as an example, till his plan and its long continuance are more particularly known. We knew it; and in these more rational days, till we find similar plans have been adopted by our patients, we shall not recommend those in the work now before us, his own Latin edition, published in 1784.

Scurvy also is to be treated by stimulants; and these without the usual remedies, it is said by this author, will succeed. Uniform experience has decided differently; and lemon juice without stimulants is, even at sea, found to be an effectual remedy. In the hooping cough, stimulants are also essential in Dr. Brown's opinion. Change of air is nonsense (fabula), and vomiting, death. It is somewhat surprising, that, in opposition to this dogma, hooping cough is seldom fatal, though these useless or dangerous remedies are employed, and with those recommended- but we have not heard of any one who has so far sinned against common sense as to employ them.

We have enlarged on this system and its application, because, as we have said, it is seductive from its simplicity, and the little labour required either in its study or its management. We have not dwelt on the minute investigation really required to adapt the stimulus to the state of direct or indirect debility in a given case; for, though we know that every disease varies in this respect, yet no provision is made for it in the system: the name and the class are only necessary. We observe, indeed, that Dr. Brown, in one or two instances, orders the stimulus to be somewhat less than that of the disease; but he no where points out the symptoms which discriminate its degree.

It is not wholly the neglect of distinguishing the degree of debility, either indirect or direct, and, of course, the proportion of stimulus to be employed, that renders the application of this system difficult or dangerous, but the very imperfect distinction of diseases. The descriptions are often the most meagre and imperfect; the diagnosis is seldom attended to. These, in fact, would require what the author never possessed, practical knowledge. The distinction also of different circumstances of a disease, which would require very different and often opposite treatment, is neglected; and when we find in the same class, to be treated with the same remedies, menstruorum,suppressio,and maenorrhoea,weshall begin to suspect that an attachment to system has precluded the observation of the operations of nature. When we see in the opposite classes, pervigilium and inquietudo, phrenitis and epistaxis, colica gravior and enteritis; in the same chapter the podagra imbeciliorum and validio-rum, treated in the same manner, we cannot greatly rely on the judgment or practical knowledge of the author.

We had supposed the Brunonian system hastening to oblivion; but, in the last edition by Dr. William Cul/en Brown, we are informed that it is generally adopted; and he asks triumphantly, what would have been the event had this system been promulgated from a professorial chair? Perhaps the delusion might have lasted longer, but the pupil will at last become a practitioner, and will bring his master's doctrine to the test of experience, nor any longer foster it than he finds it successful. His son speaks of the numerous converts to this new doctrine; but we have found few who, though they profess themselves the disciples of Brown, follow implicitly his system; and we have had numerous opportunities of remarking, that those who, on leaving the banners of Boerhaave, have adopted the nervous pathology, are rather Cullenians than Brunonians. Dr. Darwin, it is said, was a Brunonian before Brown was known: in reality, his language is in some parts nearly the same, but his practice, though peculiar, most remote; and, if the analogy is pushed further, the term should at least be altered, and the system styled Darwinian.