Nuisances often claim the attention of courts of justice, and physicians are sometimes called on to decide. Their object is, however, to determine only what manufactures are injurious to health. A brickkiln, a lime-kiln, a pottery, and an iron-foundry, are unpleasant neighbours; but can we say either is unwholesome? Smelting-houses for lead, and, in general, for copper; dye-houses and tan-yards, erected so near the water as to corrupt the stream, are certainly injurious. The manufacture of the mineral acids, the oxygenation of the muriatic acid for bleaching, the singeing of velvets, currying of leather, are processes always offensive, and generally injurious; for the workmen are usually pale and weak, subject to nervous diseases, and seldom long-lived. Yet it is said, that the improved methods of burning the smoke prevent much of the inconvenience. The process of making candles is offensive, but apparently not unwholesome. It has been admitted into towns, but with reluctance; and the manufacture is discouraged in populous cities when complained of. The business of the dyer or the butcher is certainly not injurious to the health of those who practise or who live near either, nor can we recollect, in a large populous and trading town, any peculiar complaint that could be traced to their quarters. The breath and the dung of the cows have been thought salutary; but should they be so, the vicinity of pigs is certainly otherwise, and these should not be fed in populous cities.

Were the police to interfere in buildings, one circumstance should be indispensable, viz. that every house should have a free ventilation from the front to the back part: the smallest court behind would be sufficient, if not shut up by houses rising gradually higher on a hill. We have found no circumstance so injurious to the general health of a family as a situation where free ventilation is impeded.

The foreign authors on the medicina politica are full of numerous disquisitions, in which the law of this country speaks positively, and requires no medical aid. One of these points is the age proper for marriage; others are cohabitation, the Caesarian operation, punishments during pregnancy, etc. One of these subjects calls, we think, for medical interposition, viz. the danger of propagating the most dreadful diseases, as mania, scrofula, phthisis, etc. Yet we see not how physicians can interfere; for the child sometimes partakes of that parent's constitution, which is perfectly sound. Must that child, or such children, then, be deprived of existence because the life of others may be short or suffering ? Humanity, reason, and religion, will at once forbid. A stronger case is, where a woman, from deformity, cannot have a living child. Must her marriage be prevented? Neither law nor religion will decide in the affirmative, though the child and the mother may be sacrificed; and such is the circumstance lately mentioned, where the civilians have thought the procuring abortion justifiable. This, for numerous reasons, we must oppose, though we think bringing on labour at the seventh month a humane and judicious expedient: the impossibility of the woman's bearing a living child should, however, be first ascertained without any doubt.

When the testimony of a physician is called for in a court of justice, his evidence should be clear, divested of technical language, and in modest, decent terms. He is sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; yet we have spoken of giving truth in her fairest garb, of softening what is harsh, and leaning to the side of humanity. We must explain. It is not our design to recommend prevarication, much less concealment; yet in the most decided cases there must be doubts, there must be views, which will carry with them alleviations. It is neither prevarication nor concealment to give each their full force; to point out how far they may bear on circumstances the most apparently positive. It has been said that it is better ten criminals should escape than one innocent person suffer by insufficient evidence. Yet criminals are confessedly punished for the sake of example; and the frequency of escapes, we fear, encourages new attempts. The maxim, therefore, though humane and benevolent, has been carried to an extreme; yet, as involving some intricate disquisitions, not applicable to medical evidence, we can only add, that as the extreme of justice is the extreme of injury, so excess of humanity may be -the excess of cruelty.

We have now finished a subject, new in our language, and in which, though we have anxiously avoided error, we may have often committed it. The extent of our article is comparatively short, for we have endeavoured to compress volumes into pages; and as English forensic disquisitions on medical subjects must relate to English laws, many bulky inquiries were foreign to our purpose. Yet, in our references at the end, we have pointed out the sources of a more general and a more extensive inquiry. If these appear numerous, the reader will feel more sensibly the obligation we have endeavoured to confer, viz. contracting our article by the omission of numerous references in our progress. To the candor of the more enlightened and experienced readers we now trust it, with a consciousness of having meant well; of having

Nothing extenuated, Nor set down aught in malice.

See Paullus Zacchias Quaestiones Medico legales, 3 vols. fol. Norinberg; Michaelis Valentini Pandectae

Medico legales, 4to. Frankfort; Zittman Medicina Fo-rensis, 4to. Frankfort; Alberti Systema Jurisprudentiae Medico legalis, 6 vols. 4to.; Richter Decisiones Medico Forenses; Teichmeyer Institutiones Medicinae legalis (Fazellii edit.), Jenae, 4to.; Hebenstreit An-thropologia Forensis, 8vo.; Ludwig Institutiones Me-dicinae Forensis; Fazellii Elementa Medicinae Forensis; Collect Opusculorum ad Medicinam Forensem Spectantium, a Schlegel, 6 vols. 12mo. Lipsiae; Me-decine Legale et Police Medicale de Mahon, Paris, 3 vols. 8vo.; Percival's Medical Jurisprudence; Medical Jurisprudence on Madness by J. Johnstone, M. D.

Medicina statica. During the prevalence of the mechanical systems, when pondere mensura et numero Deus omnia fecit was the conduct held out to our imitation, the body was constantly weighed, and the salubrity of food was estimated by its perspirability. This plan, pursued at some length by Sanctorius, was soon found to give unsatisfactory results; for the valetudinarian, in his statical chair, though the balance was carefully preserved, lost his strength .and spirits; and he saw, with surprise, that he was"truly found wanting." Many circumstances were not taken into the account, which would greatly alter the result; but these we need not stay to enumerate, as the folly has had its day, and is now forgotten.

Sanctorii Medicina Statica, and Keil's Aphorisms.

Medicina tristitiae. See Crocus.