physical advantages, and with an effective army of almost half a million of men, could have defied all the efforts of any invader which Europe could bring against her, and France was deemed totally incapable of such a deed. Though Buonaparte subsequently lost his army and was ruined, his advance to Moscow demonstrated the possibility and certainty of Russia's being accessible and vulnerable. There can be no doubt that Napoleon's retreat and ruin were chiefly owing to his own imprudence, and to the ravages of the climate: but the exposure to the last was a consequence of unwarrantable conduct. Napoleon attempted to do in one season, what was the work of two or three years; and, had he proceeded with caution, few seem to doubt, that he would have conquered Russia, or, at all events have reduced her government to advantageous, if not to unconditional, terms.

We cannot give faith to the later reports of Buonaparte's having preached the inaccessibility of Russia. We should rather suppose, that with the lessons he had paid so dearly for, he would have maintained cæteris paribus, that he could have conquered all European Russia.

We shall conclude our review of these highly interesting volumes, by remarking, that notwithstanding the horrid fate of the armies of Charles the Twelfth, and of Napoleon, we are convinced, that Russia is accessible, attackable, and her best provinces even conquerable, by a proper and cautious method of procedure, and by a smaller army than Buonaparte had when he invaded and took possession of part of her territories.

Observations on Injuries of the Spine and of the Thigh Bone: in two Lectures, delivered in the School of Great Windmill Street. The first in vindication of the Author's opinions against the remarks of Sir ASTLEY COOPER, Bart. The second on the late Mr. JOHN BELL's title to certain Doctrines now advanced by the same Gentleman. Illustrated with nine Plates. By CHARLES BELL, Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital. 4to. Pp. 102. London. Tegg. 1824.

ALTHOUGH Controversial discussions, as the author of the volume before us has observed, are seldom agreeable to the public, yet as the one before us involves matters of very great importance in practice, we are induced from that circumstance,

as well as from the professional rank of the controversialists, to give an esquisse of the question.

:

In doing this it is not our intention to involve the subject with any technicalities: for both parties we feel high respect; but there is a language maintained between them which nothing can justify. For Mr. Bell, if for either, some allowance might be made his professed sentiments have been attacked by Sir Astley Cooper in unrestrained language in a public class room, these attacks have been published, in a form accessible to every individual, under the title of a transcript of his delivered lectures, and although they have never been openly avowed by Sir Astley, they have never been adequately contradicted, and are consequently estimated as the authentic records of his opinions.

In the surgical school of which Sir Astley Cooper is a teacher, it has been recommended in cases where the spine is fractured and the bone depressed, and consequently exerting an injurious pressure on the spinal marrow, that the trephine should be applied to raise it up; from an assumed analogy between those cases and fractures of the skull with depression. To this operation Mr. Bell makes several objections, some of which have been promulgated to the world in his "Hospital Reports," and have obviously given occasion to the following unjustifiable and dogmatical remarks.

"If you could save one life in ten," says Sir Astley, " aye, one in a hundred, by such an operation, it is your duty to attempt it, notwithstanding any objections which some foolish persons may have urged against it."

Suppose any one now present were in this state himself, suppose him put to bed with paralysis of the lower extremities, and fully ac quainted with the inevitable result if nothing were done, would he not be glad to have any attempt made to save him? would it not be foolish and unmanly to say he would rather die than have such an attempt made? the operation is not severe, it cannot add to his danger, and as to the pain, no man, who is a man, would regard it. In the two cases in which the attempt was made, the operation did not shorten life; on the contrary, there is reason to believe that it prolonged it. You will be justified therefore in making the attempt. Though I may not live long enough to see the operation frequently performed, I have no doubt that it will be occasionally performed with success. There is no reason why it should not, and he who says that it ought not to be attempted, is a blockhead." (a laugh.)

In other words, this argumentum ad hominem, pronounces a skilful anatomist and surgeon and an elegant scholar-to be a

fool and a blockhead. The appropriate answer to this tirade is the remark of an individual for whose experience and observation Sir Astley's published discourses shew that he entertains the most profound respect :-the author of a "Treatise on Fractures and Dislocations of the Joints." "Nothing is so easy," he truly observes, "as to condemn others; but be it remembered that the disposition to do so is a proof of a weak head and a bad heart; and that it is always to be discouraged in a profession where character is all in all." Such is Sir Astley when he speaks in his books: such the advantage of appealing to Philip" out of the Lecture room.

The principal question for the consideration of the surgeon in cases of fracture of the spine, is, whether greater danger is to be apprehended from the fractured portion of bone exerting an injurious agency on the spinal marrow, or from any operation which may expose it and induce inflammation; from which directly, rather than from pressure, it is that the dangerous symptoms arise.

"We must submit," says Mr. Bell," to hear many strange proposals for the improvement of our profession in the present day from young men ambitious of notice, but that a man of Sir Astley's years and station should talk as he has done before students, and give them his authority for laying a patient upon his belly, and by incisions laying bare the bones of the spine, breaking up these bones, and exposing the spinal marrow itself, exceeds all belief. If it had been merely proposed to make such an incision of the skin, as would have allowed us with forceps to pull out a portion of the spine which had been driven in, I should have only said, the operation will be fruitless.' I should not have thought that it deserved severity of criticism. But then there would in this simple practice have been no operation; nothing bold, nothing striking from its novelty. We might have almost considered it as a natural proceeding, though I am afraid, not a successful one. But the bone must be trephined! Now, let us examine why? Why is it that you apply the trephine to the skull? Is it not because you cannot raise the bone without it? But if the ring of the vertebræ be broken down, where is the necessity for applying the trephine? You have the projecting spinous process: you have the inferior and superior edge of the bone on which to place your elevator, or to lay hold of with your forceps. I cannot for the life of me imagine any reason why that ring of bone should be trephined, and in two places. Gentlemen, before you bow to this authority, consider the subject under two aspects: first, as you stand by the bed-side of patient, pondering on his condition and in the second place, reflect whether you are required to give your assent to the statement of a just analogy. A man has received an injury on the spine; his lower extremities are motionless; you suspect that the bone is broken, Aware,

your

in these circumstances of the danger of bruising or pricking the spinal marrow, you only gently incline the body, and feel the part. It is painful and tumid, and beneath the swollen integuments you think you can feel the spinous process crushed. You know well that you ought not to press and move the part as you might a broken radius. What then, let me ask, are your reflections? 1. That it may be concussion only. 2. That the spinous process may be broken. 3. That extravasation may be in part the cause of the symptoms. 4. Anxious to inquire out the nature of the injury, if it appears that the column has been bent or twisted, you fear that it may be a fracture of the bones of the vertebræ. Such are the questions you put to yourself; such the difficulties of the diagnosis. One gentlemen tells you, the operation is not severe, it cannot add to the patient's danger.' By this we may know what are his notions of a severe operation. This is the report of which he approves, and which he offers as an example. 'He made an incision upon the depressed bone as the patient was lying upon his breast, raised the muscles covering the spinal arch, applied a small trephine to the arch, and cut it through on each side, so as to remove the spinous process and the arch of bone which pressed upon the spinal marrow.' Treatise on Dislocations, p. 559. The man must be already dead, whose condition is not made worse by such an operation as this! What sort of schooling must he have had, who does not believe that a man would be the worse for having the bone dug out from around the spinal marrow? If the theca were entire, it would be so far favorable; and yet we have seen the consequences of diastasis. If the sheath were perforated, it would be more quickly fatal, inflammation would presently commence, and the patient would be carried off, with symptoms such as I have described to be consequent on the inflammation of the spinal membranes." P. 22.

With most of the sentiments comprised in the above extract we cordially concur: there does not seem to be one single advantage derivable from the operation recommended in such forcible language by Sir Astley Cooper. If his object in proposing it be, to elevate the depressed portion by laying hold of the spinous process of the fractured vertebræ, as Mr. Bell has observed, he would be enabled to accomplish that: the very examination, however, in order to decide whether the spine be broken or not, as in cases of fracture of the thigh-bone, ought to be strongly deprecated: in the former instance by such improper interference inflammation would be the inevitable consequence, and in the latter by separating some portions of the reflected ligaments, which are frequently not torn through by the accident, and the integrity of which is so important to osseous union, considerable mischief would arise: yet such examinations for the discovery of the seat of the fracture have been recommended by the distinguished individual

whose opinions have given occasion to the commentaries before

us.

With respect to the subject of the second lecture, although much violence of language is adopted by the author, there is not such an essential difference between Sir Astley and himself as in the former. The chief intent of Mr. Bell indeed seems to be to lay claim, for his brother, the late Mr. John Bell, a distinguished surgeon, to several of the opinions promulgated by Sir Astley Cooper: there is through the whole article an evidence of amor-familias creditable to Mr. Bell's feelings as a man, but uninteresting to the professional public: there is no originality however, about the sentiments of either Mr. John Bell or Sir Astley Cooper, which needs induce the author to care one straw about their proper affiliation.

Such are the principal matters in the volume before us: and such the sentiments of the individuals engaged in the controversy, on these each, in all probability, will remain in possession of the opinions which he maintained prior to the discussion. On scientific subjects it is painful to see personal language assume the place of argument; and even when mingled with the latter, the belief that the controversy is less intended for the furtherance of science than for private objects, has an unfortunate tendency to make that a question of party which should be only a question of truth, and at once place the individuals painfully before the public, and throw the science itself into disregard.

Journal of a Residence in the Burmhan Empire, and more particularly at the Court of Amarapoorah. By CAPTAIN HIRAM COX. Of the Honourable East India Company's Bengal Native Infantry. 8vo. Pp. 440.

Whittaker. London.

Ir our readers will glance over the map of Asia, they will find to the east of the British dominions, and in ominous neighbourhood to Calcutta, a huge peninsula, intersected with rivers, delved by great gulphs of the Indian Ocean, bordering on the richest provinces of China, and overlooking that world of isles, the Indian archipelago. This is the Burmhan Empire; a part of the world now raised into sudden importance with us by the war; but of which less is known by us than of almost any other portion of the earth. With the Leadenhall Street government, war and commerce were the sole objects worthy