He has made the same observation as to many mathematicians, Newton, Flamsteed, Leibnitz: and remarks, that all those who have pursued studies attended with controversy, or disagreeable political contentions, have either died early, or, if old, have impaired their faculties to idiotcy-Swift, Warburton, and many others. Voltaire's cheerful engage ments secured his longevity, as nothing ruffled his compla cency. And he concludes his remarks with aquanimitas est - sola felicitas.

1789, June.

HISTORICUS.

LXXX. Dr. Stukeley on the Gout.

MR. URBAN,

I HAVE just been reading Dr. Stukeley's Letters to Sit Hans Sloane, Bart. about the cure of the gout by oils externally applied," third edition, 8vo. 1740. The very great success, that the Doctor asserts, from his own experience, attended this simple and easy method of treating this, “opprobrium medicorum," this cruelly tedious disease, naturally prompts me to ask any of your experienced medical friends, whether the same success has continued to attend this mode of treatment through a lapse of fifty years, a period sufficient to justly appreciate the value of any medical discovery.

The Doctor repeatedly asserts, that he had frequently reduced fits of usually three or four months' continuance to as many weeks; and, even during that time by these oils, had vastly alleviated the tortures of the truly pitiable podagrics. The oils were the invention of Dr. Rogers, who at that time resided at Stanford, as well as Dr. Stukeley, and whose sufferings under the disorder produced the composition so strenuously recommended. Dr. Rogers, it seems, thought it necessary to keep the remedy a secret, and it was sold as a nostrum under the name of "Dr. Rogers's Oils for the Gout." We have no farther hints in the letter of what they consisted, other than they were a "composition of warm oils," which were to be well rubbed on the parts affected, before a fire, once or twice daily, and that their effects in alleviating the pain, and shortening the fit, were wonderful.

From their effects Dr. Stukeley has, in this pamphlet, given us (at that time) a new theory of the gout. He asserts

the disorder to be an effort of nature to expel from the habit a fiery venom, and that she chuses the joints as the properest parts, on account of the synovial or oil-glands. there situated, that the tortures attending the fiery drop or venom might be mitigated as far as nature admits; but, by repeated attacks, the oil-glands gradually failing in their supplies, the violence of the fits generally increases, until the poor cripple's joints are in a manner burnt, dried up, and filled up with a chalk or lime-like matter. And hence the Doctor argues, that the artificial application of proper oils supplies the defect of nature, and, as far as possible, mitigates the disorder. I ought to add that, along with the oils, the Doctor strongly enforces temperance, a due regard to keeping the body open, and a discreet use of opiates when the violence of the pain renders them necessary. This is a concise, though imperfect, sketch of his theory and treatment. Those who chuse to consult his work will see it at large, and more fully stated.

This theory appears rational and deserving attention. The Doctor's plan of forming theories of diseases from the effects of remedies, rather than applying remedies on fanciful theories, seems the surer ground, and worthy the attention of medical practitioners. I know not whether any nostrum is now sold under the name of Dr. Rogers's Oils; but if this sketch tend to revive an useful remedy, or be the means of alleviating the sufferings of any one, I shall reJoice; nor will a column or two of your valuable work be occupied in vain. We can scarcely live to a nobler purpose than using our best endeavours to lighten the distress of suffering humanity.

1790, Oct.

M. F.

LXXXI. Hops not so good as formerly, and a Remedy proposed. Lynton, Jan. 21.

MR. URBAN,

I FIND it is an opinion in this country, that hops are not so good now as they were formerly, and that more are now required to make beer keep than were sufficient many years ago. So far I find is fact, that Sir Jonas Moore, and other writers about brewing, who lived a hundred years ago, order much fewer hops than are now generally put in; and they say the beer will be too bitter if you put in more. I allow about half as many more as we used to do forty years since,

but do not find more effect from them. Some old people have said, that good hops should be full of seeds: if they mean by that, large plump seeds, I believe there are hardly any such things now. I have once or twice met with a few odd ones, round, plump, and larger than white mustard; those, I suppose, had been accidentally perfected by some male hop near them; but the common hop seeds are lean, skinny, and imperfect.

If it be true that hops are degenerated, I think it must arise from some wrong practice in cultivating them; for I suppose right management will rather tend to improve plants than make them worse. What this wrong method is, may perhaps be explained in the following manner :

In most kinds of plants there is contained, in the same blossom, a male part, which scatters dust, and a female part, which stands on the top of the seed-vessel. This is the case in fruit blossoms, cowslips, peas, and most other sorts of flowers; and the Linnæan botany divides plants into classes according to the number and situation of each of these parts..

But in some sorts of plants these two parts grow in different places on the same plant. The catkins which appear in January are the male parts of a nut-tree, and are full of dust; the female parts are scarlet threads, which come out of the top of many of the buds at the same time. The catkins soon scatter their dust, and fall off; and when the bunches of nuts appear in June, they come out of those buds which have had the scarlet threads, of which there are still some remains. The false blossoms of cucumbers and melons are the male part, the fruit blossoms are the female. Indian wheat (maize) has a reed-like top, which scatters dust, and is the male part; the ear, which is the female part, comes out at the bottom of the stalk, covered close up with leaves, to preserve the grain from insects; and many flaxlike threads come out of the top of it, each of which stands at the top of the several grains of corn. So far a single plant is capable of bearing good seeds, because the male and female parts both grow out of the same root.

But there are some plants of a different kind, where the male and female parts grow upon different roots; the seeds of these will not be perfected unless a male and female plant grow near together. So the male spinach scatters its dust, and soon dies; the female lasts longer, grows larger, and bears seed. The case is the same with hemp; the male is the smallest, full of dust, and is pulled up before the fe male hemp comes to perfection, and bears its seed. Sallows

are of the same nature; the catkins of the male sallow are yellower, and soon fall off; those of the female sallow are greener, and hang on till they become pods of a dark-coloured very small seed, which come out with a white cottonlike down, to them. And hops are of the same nature: the male plant scatters a great deal of dust, but produces no hops; it is the female plants which bear the hops we use, which are the seed-vessel; and in this, I think, the wrong husbandry consists.

A bull never gives milk, nor does a ram ever bring a lamb; yet we find it necessary to keep both, that the cows and ewes may not be barren. The case is the same with plants; and it has been tried in several instances. All the false blossoms of melons were carefully pulled off before they opened, and then not one melon set. If the end of an ear of maize be tied up in a bag before the flax-like threads appear, that ear will have no corn in it; and if all the reedlike tops are cut off before they scatter any dust, all the ears will be barren. When the pods of the single peony, which bears seed, open in September, some of the seeds are hard, round, and black, these are perfected, and will grow; but there are, in the same pods, others which are red, soft, and irregularly shaped; these will not grow, for they are not perfected. In shelling of peas, many will be found grown to a proper size, and are good; but sometimes there will be, in the same pods, some which are only rudiments of imperfect peas; these did not set, and are come to nothing.

This, therefore, I take to be the mistake in the management of hops; the male plants never produce any hops; on which account the planters carefully destroy them all as useless, not considering nor knowing that thereby the seed is never perfected, the strength of the seed is lost, and the hop probably smaller than it would have been, if the seed had been perfected and grown large. I know no plant so often subject to a total failure of a crop as hops are; perhaps the seed being not perfected is one cause of their so entirely failing; and that, if they had male plants among them to set the seed, the crop might not so often fail, and probably the hops would be much finer. Garden-peas are an example of the fruit being smaller when ill set; for, at the end of summer, there are fewer peas in a pod which is proportionably shorter, and the peas not so plump as in the height of the season; perhaps for want of the summer briskness of the bees, who are supposed to be instrumental in making flowers set, by carrying about the farina. So, in a frame

kept close shut, melons do not set so well as where the air and bees are let in to disperse the dust. And large grapes have several seeds in them; the small ones are often those in which no seeds are set.

Upon the whole, therefore, I think a prudent and experimental hop-grower should plant some of the male hops in the fence round his garden, where they would take up no room, and a few within it, suppose one plant in a hundred, which can be no great loss, and see whether his garden will not be more certain of bearing, and produce more and finer hops, with larger seeds and better quality, than those of his neighbours; which I should think would proba bly be the case. Or, if any one would chuse to try it first on a less scale, he might plant some male hops on one side of his garden, and take notice whether that side will not produce more and better hops than the other.

The North Clay hops, in Nottinghamshire, are said to be stronger and bitterer than the South of England hops, so as to be disagreeable the first year, but to keep better than the others. Qu. Whether they have any different method of managing them which may occasion that difference? 1791, Jan.

T. BARKER.

LXXXII. Origin of Tontines,

MR. URBAN,

YOUR correspondent Scrutator having requested an explanation of the word Tontine, I will thank you to insert the following in your next Magazine, if you think it worth noticing.

PAUL GEMSEGE, jun.

THE word Tontine is only a cant word, derived from the name of an Italian projector. This was one Laurence Tonti, a creature of Cardinal Mazarine; who, finding the people extremely out of humour with his eminency's administration, imagined he could reconcile them by a proposal of making people rich in an instant, without trouble or pains. His scheme was a lottery of annuities, with survivorship, which he proposed in 1653, with the consent of the court, but the parliament would not register the edict. Three years after he tried his project again, for building a

VOL. III.