of Dr. Jamieson, and, as this gentleman held several other situations at the time, the appointment and the discussions to which these pluralities gave rise, with other circumstances which eventually arose out of them, excited much public attention, and will not soon be forgotten in Bengal. If, amid the distraction necessarily attendant on so many different duties, that gentleman was able to undertake anything of importance for promoting the objects of the institution, his life unfortunately was not prolonged to carry his designs into effect. The severe scrutiny exercised on the propriety of the first appointment may perhaps have had a beneficial influence on the selection of his successor. However this may be, the present superintendent of the Native Medical Institution appears to be highly qualified for his situation, and to be happily endowed with a sufficient quantity of industry to turn his learning and his talents to the best account. At the last annual examination of the College of Fort William the Governor-General observed, "The management of the (Native Medical) Institution had been confided to the zealous and able superintendence of Dr. Breton; and that gentleman has already prepared, in the native languages, various essays and short treatises, calculated not only to promote the instruction of the pupils under his charge, but gradually to disseminate among the Natives of India a highly useful knowledge of the principles of medical science." We have the pleasure to add, that these works have fortunately reached our hands; having been transmitted by the author to the learned Dr. Gilchrist, who has committed them to us for public use. We here subjoin a list, explanatory of their character and contents:

1. A Vocabulary of the Names of the different Parts of the Human Body, and of the Medical and Technical Terms applied to them-in English, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit, and Hinduwee.

2. Hindoostanee versions of the London Pharmacopoeia in both the Persian and Naguree characters, in two volumes.

3. Treatise on Suspended Animation, from the Effects of Submersion, Hanging, Noxious Air or Lightning, and the Means of Resuscitation; in the Naguree character and in the Hindoostanee language.

4. Substance of a Lecture on the Cholera Morbus, delivered to the Students of the Native Medical Institution; in the Naguree and Persian characters and in the Hindoostanee language.

5. Introductory Lecture on Anatomy; in the same characters and language as the preceding.

6. Demonstrations of the Brain and its Appendages; also in the same characters and language.

7. Essay on the Venom of Serpents; in the same characters and language. 8. Essay on Intermittent Fever; in the same.

9. Essay on Rheumatism; in the same.

10. Essay on Cataract; in the same.

11. On the Structure of the Eye; in the same.

12. On Osteology; in the same.

13. Demonstration of the Abdominal Viscera; in the same

14. Demonstration of the Thoracic Viscera; in the same.

15. Essay on the Cholera Morbus ; in the Bengalee language.

These works, with three or four others by the same author, are
before us;
and we cannot but express our great surprise, as well

now

as satisfaction, that so much has been done in so short a space of time. The whole have been lithographed at the Government lithographic press at Calcutta, by which means the various forms of the Naguree, Persian, and Roman characters, according to the several languages of which they consist, have been executed with great accuracy and beauty; one of the latest improvements in the art of printing having thus fortunately stepped in to overcome one of the most serious obstacles to the diffusion of knowledge in the Native languages, for representing which on paper, lithography is admirably adapted. The learned Orientalist to whom these works were sent from India having consigned them to us for public use, accompanied with various high testimonials of approbation, we think it a duty we owe to Dr. Breton, as well as to his patrons, the Government of Bengal, to lay them before the British public. Dr. Gilchrist expresses himself in the following terms:

To the Editor of the Oriental Herald.

SIR,-The accompanying works, with a letter from the author, have just reached me from India, and as their contents may prove highly useful to the British Indian public, as well as profitable to their meritorious author, you are at liberty to lay those portions of either before your numerous readers, which you may conceive will be most interesting to them all in both hemispheres. You will also receive a Calcutta newspaper, containing the speech of Lord Amherst at the Annual Examination of the College of Fort William, which, amongst other things touches on the great services of Dr. Breton, who is, I perceive, among the senior medical servants on the Bengal establishment, and highly esteemed there, not only for professional talents, but also as an excellent Orientalist, whose abilities and persevering efforts will yet render the Native Medical Institution, over which he has for some years actively and honourably presided, so efficient that it will soon become a blessing to many millions in our Eastern empire; provided his efforts be countenanced and supported as cordially by the executive at home as he appears to have been patronised by the Bengal Government, from their conviction of the urgent necessity for such an establishment. On this subject, a reference to Dr. Breton's communication to me, and to the judicious comments of the present GovernorGeneral, Lord Amherst, will make any farther detail from myself altogether superfluous on this occasion, except my merely adding that the medical and language department seem to have each been executed with competent skill and fidelity combined; so much so indeed, that I would strongly recommend the whole set of Dr. Breton's faithful versions of his professional treatises as text and school books for all intended British Indian surgeons in future to study at their respective colleges, where Oriental instructors would speedily be procurable, if a fair prospect of employment were once opened for them, without subjecting the Honourable Company to the smallest additional expense on that score, in any way whatever. I presume their present Examining Physician enjoys a salary more than commensurate with the responsible but very easy duties he has to perform in that capacity; it would therefore be no great stretch of industrious zeal on his part were he to qualify himself as an Eastern linguist also, and grant the requisite certificates to candidates for medical appointments in India, previously to their actual nomination by the Directors. This office was originally conferred upon an old and able Bengal surgeon, who had retired perhaps rather prematurely from the service in consequence of bad health, and no doubt there may yet be others equally deserving and similarly situated who would gladly perform the united task of Examiner in local diseases and languages whenever a vacancy in that post should happen, which, comparatively speaking, in its present form (occupying one or two hours only with every probationer out of sixty per annum) is almost a sinecure.

I have already attentively perused Dr. Breton's essay on Cholera Morbus, and, if the others are all as well executed, he certainly deserves whatever lucrative situation his Honourable Masters can bestow upon him either at home or abroad, if they really wish to reward able, old, and faithful servants according to their respective capacities or deserts. In my time, some forty years ago, the cholera morbus, as a fatal epidemic, was hardly known, and I never encountered this formidable malady, in that predic ment, but once, while marching across the country from Bombay to Bengal in the month of January, when the weather was rather cold at night, contrasted with the heat from a cloudless sky all day. An elderly gentleman, then old enough to have been my father, was my colleague as attending Assistant Surgeon at the Detachment General Hospital, into which six or eight patients were brought in rapid succession, and the whole died of the very cholera which has since proved so fatal in various parts of Asia. The first patients were, of course, treated secundùm artem, and every one of them slipped through our hands, under even a cautious expulsion of the peccant matter from the viscera, which we then naturally enough conceived was the sole cause of the disease; but before this could be effected, the poor fellows were thus, legitimately enough, despatched to their long homes. I began to get alarmed, and held a consultation with my reverend senior assistant, lest the Superintending Surgeon might hear of the havoc committed by death or the doctors in the General Hospital, and we might be blamed not only for our imprudent silence but for our baneful prescriptions. I honestly told the old gentleman that we must think and act for ourselves in every subsequent case; for to me it seemed clear we were wrong in practice, however right in the theoretical treatment of our late patients. Taking a hearty pinch of snuff, and casting a significant glance towards the unfortunate creature who had recently expired amidst excruciating evacuations, My reply was short, he said very coolly, "Well, what would you advise? that we could not do worse than had been done, and it was possible we might at least have better luck were all the ordinary rules laid aside, and some remedies in the Brownonian style immediately tried. To this the grave doctor readily consented, and we desired the Native Assistants to put a quantity of finely powdered bark and cinnamon, with a due proportion of laudanum, into a bottle of Madeira wine, to shake the mixture well, and the moment any person was sent to the Hospital he was to take a wine glassful of the medicine, to be repeated every half hour, until one of ourselves could attend in person. This experiment was tried with the utmost success, for we never afterwards lost another man, and always had leisure enough to apply proper remedies, by having thus in the first instance preserved the vis vitæ long enough for that purpose. Those who were affected had been generally exposed, as centinels or bazar people, during the night, to the cold air or dews so common in the winter months of India; but what is very singular, I never again saw the cholera for the space of twenty years afterwards, though for many seasons of late I find it has been a species of plague, traversing the whole Peninsula, and that my random recipe has very often acted as a charm in this terrific complaint, but whether as an accidental specific or a nostrum of ours is more than I can assert. I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

To this letter we are fortunately able to add the testimony of various individuals in India, of learned Natives of the country as well as Europeans, whose names are a sufficient guarantee that it is no ordinary merit which has secured such general approbation. In a letter to Mr. Breton, from Rammohun Roy, acknowledging a present of his work, the illustrious Hindoo reformer, who has so long been labouring to turn his countrymen to a better faith, and is alike distinguished by his talents, his learning, and his virtues, thus writes:

I beg you will accept my best thanks for the valuable present of your productions. They are indeed full of instruction, and better calculated to furnish

the Natives with useful knowledge than all the works published in this country on abstruse subjects.

The above is dated the 4th of May (1825); and in another letter, dated the 28th of September, the same practical philosopher, who even here takes an opportunity of expressing his opinion of these mystical notions, against which his whole life has been a continued struggle, thus writes concerning Dr. Breton's labours:

Ailing as I have been, I have perused with great pleasure the tracts you kindly sent me; and while reading them, I could not help anticipating the blessings which these and similar publications are calculated to bestow upon the Natives of this part of the globe; since they contain real facts, established by experience, and not mere speculations, supported only by prejudice and opinion. I hope and pray that your exertions may be crowned with success.

Another Native of learning and respectability, and we believe an orthodox Hindoo, Radhakant Deb, expresses similar sentiments on the subject, though in a style somewhat more Oriental:

I have (he says in a letter to Dr. Breton) attentively perused the work (on Cholera), and find the observations, symptoms, and remedies of the dreadful malady contained in it to be very wise, proper, beneficial, and effectual. I shall introduce and recommend your advice and medicine both here and in the interior, and the human lives which will thereby be saved will, I trust, be an ample reward for the trouble you have taken, and the expense incurred in publishing and circulating the pamphlet gratuitously.

Our European testimony is still more ample and conclusive. Capt. Macan, the Persian interpreter to the Commander-in-chief, a gentleman, whose acquirements in Oriental learning are acknowledged to be of a high order, observes, addressing Dr. Breton on the subject of his work:

None but Oriental scholars can properly appreciate the difficulties you have encountered; and as you have got over the first step, which is always the most difficult, I sincerely hope you will go on. Hitherto we have been instructing the Natives in their own erroneous system of philosophy, and particularly astronomy, and it is only by doing in other branches of science what you are doing in medicine, that we can hope to give them the light of truth.

In order to place the merits of Dr. Breton on the most unexceptionable grounds, by adding to the testimony of individuals that of public bodies, we give an extract of a letter from Capt. Ruddell, secretary to the College Council of Fort William, dated 21st of July last, addressed officially to Dr. Breton:

The College Council were so much pleased with your pamphlets presented to them, that they expressed a wish to see the whole published and distributed throughout the country.

Again, the highest of all professional authorities on the subject in Bengal, the Medical Board, caused the following official communication to be made through their secretary:

To Peter Breton, Esq., Superintendent of the School for Native Doctors. SIR,-Adverting to a letter from the military secretary to Government, containing an extract of the proceedings in the judicial department, with reference to a correspondence with the Government of Bombay on the subject of education, I am directed by the Medical Board to request that you will be pleased to send to this office, at your earliest convenience, six copies of each of the different works composed by you for facilitating the acquisition of medical and physical knowledge by your pupils, in order that they may be

forwarded to Bombay. The Board cannot omit this opportunity of congratulating you on the usefulness of your labours, and the important advantages which seem likely to be derived from them by the medical branch of the service throughout the three presidencies.-I have, &c.

Fort William Medical Board Office,

18th Aug. 1825.

(Signed)

J. ADAM, Secretary, Medical Board.

It would be a waste of time to adduce any further evidence on this subject, though we have more in our possession; but we cannot resist the inclination we feel to place on public record, to the honour of Mr. Bayley, then chief secretary to the Government, and now a member of the Supreme Council of Bengal, the humane and liberal conduct of that gentleman during the period when the cholera morbus was raging so dreadfully in Calcutta, in August and September last. We bear testimony to his virtues, when we meet with such proofs of them as these, not the less readily, though he was an accessary, if not the principal, in bringing ruin on our own heads, without even any just pretence for the wanton exercise of power.

When the terrible malady to which we have alluded was afflicting the unfortunate natives of Bengal, and many hundreds were falling victims to it daily in Calcutta, Mr. Bayley wrote to Dr. Breton the following note:

MY DEAR SIR,-It has occurred to me, that if your treatise on Cholera in Bengalee were widely distributed in Calcutta and its neighbourhood just now, it would be useful.

Perhaps the best way would be to send nearly all the spare copies you have to Mr. C. Barwell, at the Police Office, to-morrow; thence they might be given to the Native Doctors employed under the police, to the Thanadars, and other Native officers who can read Bengalee, and to the Native schools: a new edition, to a considerable extent, might be struck off; and if you will report the expense which may be incurred in doing so, either I will pay it myself, or ask Government to pay it. A few copies in Persian might also be usefully distributed from the Police Office.-Yours sincerely,

(Signed) W. B. BAYLEY.

From this letter it is evident that to his influence and exertions ought to be attributed the following official communication from the Government to the magistrates of Calcutta, dated the 1st of September last, which passed through his department:

The temporary employment, with the sanction and concurrence of Dr. Breton, of twenty of his most experienced pupils, in those parts of the town where the sickness chiefly prevails, as well as the distribution of Dr. Breton's treatise on the cure of the cholera, in the Native languages, appear to Government to be measures calculated to be of great immediate advantage; and his Lordship in council desires that you will communicate to Dr. Breton the sense which Government entertains of his prompt and zealous co-operation with you, and of his compliance with your suggestions at a time when an official reference for formal sanction would have involved serious delay and inconvenience.

The result is stated in a letter from the magistrates of Calcutta, dated some weeks afterwards, which, as a public document, we think of sufficient importance to be also given entire :

To P. Breton, Esq.

SIR.-We beg leave to inform you hat the decrease in the number of cases