does him great honour, and may be useful to other practitioners. The third cafe was perfectly cured.

Section the fixth treats of the fecond fpecies of Hydrocele, mentioned in the preceding one, viz. the encyfted fort. Three hiftories of it are annexed. The fubject of the firft, a lad of fixteen years, was perfectly cured, after a third dif charge, and a fecond incifion through the cyft, twelve months after the first. The second was a perfect cure of the encyfted Hydrocele, but not of one of the vaginal coat, with which it was combined, and which had been repeatedly emptied and filled again. The third was a perfect cure of the fame fort of Hydrocele, effected by a thorough incifion of the cyft, which he calls the radical cure.

The feventh fection treats of the Hydrocele of the outward membrane, or theath, as it may be called, of the testicle, The radical cure of this is effected, our author fays, by exciting fuch a degree of inflammation in it, as, after suppuration, may efface the small cavity between this and the immediate coat of the tefticle, in confequence of their cohering by an incarnation of the fore. The many different ways of effecting this are reduced to two in modern practice; viz. by the cauftic, or by an incifion of the vaginal coat throughout its length; and of thefe Mr. Pott prefers the laft, tho' many practitioners decline it. He affirms, however, "that having performed it scores of times, he never faw the patients life in danger, nor that it proved fatal, but twice." He fpecifies the various temperaments and circumftances, which only ought to deter a skilful operator from it. Two hiftories of this dif ease are prefixed to his account of the operation, both of which were radically cured by difperfion, or diffipation, as he sometimes terms it. One was effected by nature, in confequence of the first fit of the gout, in a gentleman of fortyfive, which confined him to his bed for fix weeks; and which mere decumbiture might probably conduce to his cure. The other tumour was of two years growth, which the patient had confented to have tapped; but happening to hurt the fcrotum by a fall, he altered his mind; and Mr. Pott having recourfe then to fomentation, pultice, &c. the whole tumour disappeared in about three weeks, and there has been no relapfe. He ingenuously confeffes at the fame time, he was never able to fucceed by the fame means in many fubfequent attempts.

The eighth fection treats of the Hæmatocele, which, he fays, is either a tumour of the fcrotum, or of the spermatic

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procefs,

procefs, from extravafated blood. Two kinds of it he fuppofes the effects of a chirurgic operation, chiefly from tapping the tumour juft above mentioned. The third he fuppofes to be a Rupture of a branch of the fpermatic vein. Of eleven inftances of it annexed to this fection, eight were confequences of a Hydrocele vaginalis: a ninth was from extravafated blood in the membrane of the fpermatic cord. This last, and seven of the former recovered, one dying on the ninth day, having the scrotum mortified, and fume fphacelated spots on fome of the inteftines. One of the eight was obliged to fubmit to the extirpation of one tefticle. The two remaining cafes appended to this fection were not Hæmatoceles, but Hydroceles, combined with the collection of a fluid in the fac of a congenial hernia. Both these subjects recovered.

The ninth fection treats of a Varicocele, or dilatation of the veffels of the fcrotum, and of the Circocele, which is a varicous enlargement of the fpermatic vein. Two cafes of this laft are annexed, (the firft being scarcely confidered as a difcafe) from which no fatality enfued, but a very perceivable diminution or wafting of the testicle on the affected fide.

Section the tenth and laft treats of the Sarcocele, under which term this writer comprehends all fchirrofities of the testicles, of whatever fize or duration. He is very diffufe and accurate in his difcuffion of this frequently mortal difeafe, through-out thirty-two pages. It comprizes twelve cafes. Of these the three first recovered perfectly by caftration. A fourth underwent the operation, and died about feven months after, with violent pains about the kidneys, fpafmodic affections of the breaft, and all the fymptoms of a peripneumony; the renal gland being found, upon diffection, as big as a large Seville orange, and truly fchirrous. The fifth patient died, being ftrongly averfe to caftration, and having taken large quantities of the extract of hemlock, for a confiderable time, to no purpofe; and at laft entered upon a courfe of the fublimate folution, which Mr. Pott thinks contributed to fhorten a very miferable existence. The fixth died fome months after caftration, not having admitted it early enough. A seventh died eight or nine months after the operation (being difmiffed well in two months) of a large cancerous fungus in his groin. The eighth died the third day after caftration performed by the late Mr. Freke, and, as it fees, without the hearty concurrence of all his hofpital colleagues. The ninth cafe was a hard tumour, about the middle of the fpermatic procefs, the tefticle being perfectly found. Some rupture doctor thruft

thruft a lancet into it; blood only followed, and fuch a cancerous fore enfued, as left no hopes of fucceeding by extirpation. The patient died after languishing miferably several months. The tenth patient alfo died at the end of two years, under a schirrous tefticle, having protested against caftration, and being indeed no promising fubject for it. The cafe of the eleventh patient was a large tumour of the testicle, of three years standing, which, like that of the ninth, was plunged into by a rupture doctor: a horrid fungus, with great pain, hæmorrhage, &c. were the confequence, which 1peedily delivered the patient from a torturing existence. The last case is a fcirrhous tefticle, about which our author was confulted, but his advice was not purfued. It really feems to have been injudicioufly treated. Caftration does not appear to have been propofed, and the patient died foon. after his arrival in London. He concludes this treatise, however, with giving his judgment, "That when the testicle is poffeffed by a true fchirrhus or cancer, it ought to be clearly extirpated, or not meddled with at all, by way of operation."

Such is the fubftance of this practical Treatife, containing 223 pages; of which the chirurgical hiftories employ ninetyfix. This may be thought a large proportion by thofe readers of the fame profeffion, who are apt to confider the exhibition of many cafes as a matter of oftentation and parade : but if we recollect the number of the prefent cafes, which either terminated fatally, or were only palliated, we think candour muft acquit Mr. Pott in this refpect. It is certain indeed, if gentlemen largely employed in phyfic or furgery, were to indulge a habit of publishing the greater part of their experience, which might naturally prove the most fuccefsful part of it, doubtless it might have an odious, empirical, and fordid appearance. But on the other hand, if men of knowlege and opportunity will acquaint us with their failures, and very poffible errors, as well as with their fucceffes; and publish only fuch cafes, whatever be their event, as are curious or fingular, and may very probably be inftructive, fuch communications would be truly liberal, and must be founded in philanthropy: especially if we reflect, that perfons very much engaged in practice have the leaft leifure for writing and pubJifhing, in which they cannot employ their time fo lucratively. From fuch confiderations, we conceive this perform-ance is well entitled to a favourable reception from the public; the large intervals between the hiftories being employed

in clear and accurate defcriptions of the feveral kinds of this difeafe; in reciting the antient and modern methods of operating in them; and in fome new and practical difcuffions of the Author's own, either in the text or the notes, with frequent references to the beft writers in furgery. His preface affects to difclaim any pretenfion to elegant writing: this might as well have been omitted, fince fome may fuppofe it a bait for a compliment; for as his expreffion is very generally correct, and always proper and perfpicuous, it feems to imply as much elegance as his fubject would pertinent y admit of.

An Effay on the firft Principles of Natural Philofophy: Wherein the Ufe of natural Means, or fecond Caufes, in the Oeconomy of the material World is demonftrated from Reafon, Experiments of various Kinds, and the Teftimony of Antiquity. Illuftrated with Copper-plates. By the Rev. William Jones, late of Univerfity College in Oxford; and Author of the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity*. 4to. 9s. fewed. Rivington.

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HERE is nothing prejudices the candid Reader fo much against the character and pretenfions of a Writer, as his arrogance, in prefuming on his own judgment, while he is petulantly treating with contempt the authority of others. The Author of the work before us is often culpable in this particular.

His Effay is divided into four books. In the fire, he treats of the mechanism of Nature in general, and combats the Newtonian doctrine of a Vacuum, and the vis inertia of matter. There are in this book many fhrewd and very just obfervations on the mathematical principles of Natural Philofophy, and on the infufficiency of fome geometrical arguments, made ufe of to afcertain the nature of phyfical elements. They would have had more weight, however, had our Author given us a better proof of the fufficiency of phyfical reafoning.

In the fecond book, he confiders Attraction and Gravity at large; and expofes the inaccurate and contradictory manner in which the Newtonians, and even Sir Ifaac Newton himfelf, have fpoken of these principles. The fame objections,

however,

however, have been often made, and the juftice of them admitted, fo far as they ferve to fhew the want of logical precifion in the phyfical terms and expreffions of geometrical Writers. It is very obvious, nevertheless, that they have been always very well understood; and that, whether they fpoke of attraction as a cause or as an effect, it never affected the truth of any argument they made ufe of to illuftrate any demonstration founded on that principle.

The contempt, indeed, is juft, which our Author fhews for the prefumptuous conduct of, what he calls, mere English Mathematicians, who declare it as their opinion, that "never a Philofopher before Newton ever took the method that he did; that it is a mere joke to talk of a new philofophy; and that in these unhappy days of ignorance and avarice, Minerva has given place to Pluto, [meaning Plutus]." We agree, with Mr. Jones, that, however skilled fuch Writers as these may be in the theory, or expert in the practice, of mechanics, yet, when they take upon them magifterially to decide upon philofophy in general, they fhould be checked with a ne futor ultra crepidam. Our Author cannot fuppofe, however, that all Newtonians are of this ftamp. Mr. Maclaurin confeffes that Geometry can be of little ufe in natural philofophy, till data are collected to build upon: now it cannot be fuppofed he conceived the data themselves were to be collected by Geometry. Newton alfo, when he talks of attraction as a physical principle, expreffes himself in very plain terms concerning his opinion of its being a mechanical effect. It is not improbable that, in the latter part of his life at least, he entertained fome fuch notion too of the vis inertia, and other general properties of palpable bodies, notwithstanding what he has laid down in his Regula Pbilofophandi. The defign of this eminent Philofopher was, to give a mechanical explication of the greater phenomena of Nature; deduced, on mathematical principles, from fome certain and indisputable phyfical data. It was therefore neceffary for him to beIgin fomewhere, and to affume fuch data as could be experimentally demonftrated to exist. In the vague and fluctuating ftate in which he found the systems of Natural Philofophy, he might be very juftly afraid of bewildering himself and followers, by recurring to elements too profound and far-fetched. Indeed, notwithstanding this precaution, he was at first

A paffage quoted from the preface to the ingenious Mr. Emerfon's treatife on Mechanics; on which we shall only obferve, non omnia poffumus onnes.

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