comes the duty of every good fubject to exert himself in cutting it off.

Many writers have found great fault with the prefent mode of collecting live ftock, and bringing them to market by jobbers; they have also found fault with falefmen and carcafe butchers: but in oppofition to these cafuifts I muft declare, that I look upon the perfons thus cenfured as very effentially ferviceable to the public; for in stance, the stock of graziers or farmers cannot all become fat at the fame time, but when any part is fo, the fooner that part is dif. pofed of the better; therefore the jobbers or drovers either buy or drive fuch stock as is fit for fale to the market, where the salesman has but the fmall commiffion of one fhilling and fix-pence per bullock, or three-pence per fheep for his trouble in difpofing of them to the carcafe or cutting butcher, and if the latter has not the conveniences for flaughtering, he may have the bullock flaughtered for four fhillings, and the whole of his produce fairly accounted for. This expence furely cannot materially enhance the price to the confumers.

A gentleman of my acquaintance, who keeps part of his eftate in his own hands in the county of Suffolk, one hundred miles from London, informs me that his black cattle are driven from his own grounds to Smithfield market, and there fold, for which he pays only five fhillings per head, including the whole of their keep and turnpikes. Can live ftock be conveyed from the breeder to the confumer at á lefs expence? Surely no. What would the confequence be if graziers; &c. were to bring their

cattle to market themselves, and to charge the expence of their jour neys and time to the public? It is too evident to need a reply. Be fides, the very persons just before complained of, feem as fubject to misfortunes as other men, and in general appear to meet with equal difficulties in procuring a liveli hood. For these reasons, and many more which might be urged, it appears to me that the dearnefs of provifions is owing to a real fearcity; and therefore, until a greater plenty of the neceffaries of life fhall be produced, or until the prefent produce be applied much more towards the fupport of the people, and much lefs towards the maintenance of unneceffary horses, a reduction of the prices will remain abfolutely impoffible.

1

advantages they poffefs are ever accompanied with inconveniences. The almoft incredible number of perfons drowned annually at Amfterdam, excited attention and regret; and it having been found, on enquiry, that the majority of thefe died merely for want of affiftance, a fociety was formed, which offered premiums to thofe who fhould fave the life of a citizen that was in danger of perifhing by water; and which proposed, from time to time, to publish the treatment and method of recovery followed in fuch fituations.

The utmost encouragement was every where given throughout the United Provinces, by the magiffrates in particular, and afterwards by the ftates general, to fo falutary an inftitution; and, from the fhort memorials before us, it appears that it has been attended with very confiderable fuccefs, and will be productive of the most beneficial confequences. In a matter of fuch extenfive and important concern, we think it our duty to extract from this interefting work a general ac.. count of the fuccefs which has atfended the endeavours of this laudable fociety; and of the methods by which it was procured: promifing a fhort rationale of the principles to which it is evidently to be attributed.

It is certainly not very eafy, in many cafes, to afcertain precifely that state of an animal body which is called death: and in none, perhaps, more difficult than in bodies which have lain for fome time under water. In these cafes the principal, and often the only material change produced in the animal economy is, that by the preffure of the water on the epiglottis, and the want of air,

an entire ftop is put to respiration; confequently to the free paffage of the blood through the lungs; and, as an effect of that obftruction, to its circulation throughout the whole body; fo that the heart, after a few ineffectual ftruggles and efforts to move the mafs through the freightened paffages of the lungs, at lait becomes quiefcent. Neither the vital organs, however, nor the animal fluids, have perhaps received any irreparable or even material injury, by this state of rest in the one, or ftagnation of the other: and nothing feems wanting to reftore the yet unimpaired machine to the exercife of its accuftomed functions, than merely to put it once more into motion. Former experience has fhewn the juftice of this reafoning, and of the conclufion which we have drawn from it; which is still more fatisfactorily evinced by the very large number of well-authenticated hiftories contained in these three publications.

The most obvious methods of renewing the fufpended motions of the heart and lungs, on which all the others depend, are, to blow air repeatedly into the last-mentioned organ, and to relieve the heart by lefening the males movenda, the mafs of blood, as quickly as poffible, by bleeding in the jugulars or arm. The other methods may, we imagine, be all nearly comprehended under this one general indication; of applying to the whole body, or to thofe parts of it which are more peculiarly fenfible or irritable, the most powerful and appropriate ftimuli. Such are thofe recommended by the members of this humane and truly patriouc in ftitution; as warmth, the blowing common air, or, which is prefera· [0] 4

ble,

ble, the fmoke of tobacco, into the inteftines, either by the chirurgical inftrument here called a fumigator, and which our readers may find described and delineated in Heif ter's Surgery; or, if that is not at hand, through a tobacco pipe, or the heath of a pocket knife, the point of which is firft cut off. To thefe expedients must be added the application of the most pungent volatile falts or fpirits to the noftrils, or the tickling them with feathers: gentle fhaking, and continued warm frictions, either dry, or with proper liniments rubbed in, from the neck down the fpine of the back; the exhibition of ftimulating clyfters and afterwards, when the figns of returning life begin to appear, the pouring of brandy or other warm and ftimulating liquors into the mouth, and the adminiftration of vomiting and purging

medicines.

:

It will give a humane reader pleafure to be informed, that in this publication the hiftories are given of no less than one hundred and nine citizens, who from the first inftitution of this fociety towards the end of the year 1767, to the clofe of the year 1770, have, in the United Provinces alone,been reftored to their friends and country, by the use of some or all of the methods above indicated. Of thefe, fifty-five have been thus preferved in the compafs only of laft year; all of whom were adjudged to be dead by the by-ftanders; as they had every fign or criterion of death except putrefaction. Many of them were already stiff, and in none of them was there the leaft obfervable pulfation, either of the heart or arteries. Several of them had been half an hour, and some an hour under the water and even under ice;

the heads of fome having ftuck during that time, in the mud of the canals or rivers: and yet all of them were reftored to life, and the honorary medal of the fociety, or their premium of fix ducats, paid to their prefervers. In a very small number of cafes, indeed, the patients relapfed and died: but fome of thefe had fallen into the water when in a ftate of intoxication; others had received injuries in the dragging them out, by means of hooks, from the bottoms of rivers or canals, or from the rough and ill-judged proceeding of the byftanders, rolling them upon casks with the belly undermoft, and the head hanging downwards; a pracz tice which the fociety justly con demns.

One of the moft obfervable cir cumftances which we remark in thefe hiftories, and which confirms what we have above faid concerning the fmallness of the injury which the human body may fuftain, by being for a confiderable time immerfed in water, is, that in many of the cafes here recited, we obferve the fubjects of them, who formerly would have been num bered among the dead, and moft undoubtedly been treated as fuch, walking about the next day, or even in a few hours, to thank their deliverers in perfon. In fome of thefe inftances, the human machine appears to have scarce fuffered any greater injury, than a clock fuftains by having had the motion of its pendulum accidentally stopped, Its works are not affected by the accident, and are all in a condition, and ready to perform their respec tive movement, the moment fome friendly hand gives it a push, and renews its vibrations. We should not omit to obferve,

that