On the formation and growth of bones, the author obferves,

Every bone has, like the foft parts, its arteries, veins, and abforbent vellels; and every bone has its nerves too. We see them entering into its fubftance in small threads, as on the furfaces of the frontal and parietal bones. We find delicate nerves going into each bone along with its nutritious veffels; and yet we hardly believe the demonftration, fince bones feem quite infenfible and dead. We have no pain when the periosteum is rafped and fcraped from the bone: we have no feeling when bones are cut in amputation: we feel no pain when a bone is trepanned, or when cauftics are applied to it. But there is a deception in all this. A bone may be exquifitely fenfible, and yet give no pain; a paradox which is very eafily explained. A bone may feel acutely, and yet not fend its fenfation to the brain.It is not fit that parts fhould feel in this fenfe, which are fo continually expofed to fhocks and blows, and all the accidents of life; which have to fuffer all the motions the other parts require. In this fenfe, the bones, the cartilages, ligaments, burfe, and all the parts that relate to joints, are quite infenfible and dead. A bone does not feel, or its feelings are not conveyed to the brain, except in the abfence of pain, it fhews every mark of life. Scrape a bone and its veffels bleed, cut or bore a bone, and granulations fprout up; break a bone, and it will heal; or cut a piece of it away, and more bone will be readily produced hurt it and it inflames; burn it and it dies; take any proof of fenfibility, but the mere feeling of pain, and it will answer to the proof. In fhort thofe parts have a fenfibility which belongs to themselves, but have no feeling in correfpondence with the general fyftem."

"A bone feels ftimuli, and is excited to react: injuries produce inflammation in the bones, as in the foft parts; and then fwelling, and fpongy loofenefs, and a fulness of blood, fuppuration, ulcer, and the death and difcharge of the difeafed bone enfue. When the texture of a bone is thus loosened by inflammation, its feeling is roufed; and the hidden fenfibility of the bone rifes up like a new property of its nature and as the eye, the fkin, and all feeling parts, have their fenfibility increafed by difeafe, the bones, ligaments, burfe, and all the parts, whofe feeling, during health, is obfcure and hardly known, are routed to a degree of fenfibility, far furpaffing the foft parts. The wound of a joint is indeed less painful at first, but when the inflammation comes, its fenfibility is raised to a dreadful degree: the patient cries out with anguish. No pains are equal to thofe which belong to the bones and joints.”

Speaking of the various researches into the causes of muscular motion, the author fays,

"Why fhould we feek the ultimate fibres of the mufcles, or study their forms, when the discovery could not advance us one fingle step in the knowledge of its nature or effence? What avails it that we have difcovered, if we have difcovered, the fhape of the particles of

blood:

blood: the wave-like fibres within the fubftance of the nerves, or the jointed appearance in the fmaller fibres of mufcles? We do not underftand the nature of the blood, the properties of the nerves, nor the contractive power of the mufcles, at all better by this peculiar form of the internal ftructure, than we do by the groffer marks of their external form."

In defcribing the bones of the pelvis, he fays, "The brim is that oval ring which parts the cavity of the pelvis from the cavity of the abdomen it is formed by a continued and prominent line along the upper part of the facrum, the middle of the ilium, and the upper part or creft of the pubis. This circle of the brim fupports the impregnated womb, keeps it up against the preffure of the labour pains, and fometimes this line has been as sharp as a paper-folder, and has cut across the lower fegment of the womb; and fo, by jeparating the womb from the vagina, has rendered the delivery imposible; and the child efcaping into the abdomen among the inteftines, the woman has died."

Where the author gleaned this obfervation we are unable to guefs; but we think we may venture to affure him, that inftead of this being an ordinary occurrence, or its happening now and then, (which the word fometimes feems to imply) it never did, and we apprehend, never could happen. It has been fuppofed, that from the preffure of the pregnant uterus against the brim of the pelvis, during the last month or two of geftation, it fometimes happens, that a part of the circumference of the cervix is bruifed and rendered thin and thus difpofed to rupture, in cafe of the labour proving uncommonly violent or tedious; and this has been alledged as a reafon why ruptures are more common in the cervix, than in any other part of the uterus. But before the edge of the bones could cut through the whole circumference of the uterus, and feparate it from the vagina, it must have divided the rectum, bladder, and all the intervening integuments, a circumstance of which we have not the leaft intimation in any medical writer.

ART. III. A Defultory Sketch of the Abufes in the Militia, with Comparative Reflections on the Increase of our Military Establishments, and the Decrease of our Manufactures. T which is added, an accurate Abstract from the last printed Lifts, by which it will appear, that there are upwards of 14,000 Officers on Full and Half-pay, whilst there exift two bundred and thirty-eight Vacancies in the Militia at this critical Functure. Addreffed to the Right Hon. the Earl of Moira. 8vo. 212 pp. 35. Bell, Oxford-ftreet. 1794. N the reign of Charles the Second, when ribaldry and profaneness were the higheft recommendations of every new publication,

IN

publication, a pamphlet came out, entitled, "Die and be Damn'd." The title was a fufficient recommendation, and the book was of courfe fought after with the greatest avidity, but the wicked wits of those days were grievously disappointed when they found they had bought a fober and a moral work, cautioning them against those very vices which they expected it would illuftrate and encourage, and that the title was held out to them merely as an inducement to purchase the book. We conjecture, the author of the pamphlet now before us muft have reafoned much in the fame way with the writer of " Die and be Damn'd." He must have concluded (and he is certainly in the right) that if he had called his book An Argument against the exifting Government, or An Argument against all Governments, or Recommendation of French Principles, or A Vindication of Republicanifm, the fubject, under either of the titles, is become fo trite, that no purchaser would have been found. I muft, therefore, fays he, find out a title which will attract the eye of the readers of advertisements, and the gazers at booksellers' windows. And as the abuses in the Militia are a new topic, and will therefore excite curiofity, I will prefix them as a title to my book, though I do not mean to write a fyllable on the fubject, except, perhaps, now and then in a note for the fake of giving a colour to my title-page.

Setting out on this principle, the author has written in a tolerably correct, but very turgid language, a long and tedious invective against every inftitution in this kingdom, profeffing, at the fame time, to be no enemy to Monarchy, and disclaiming, as moft Republicans have of late thought it politic to do, all approbation of the enormities committed by the French; yet he palliates their conduct in fo many inftances, that we do not think he feels much compunction for those whom he brands with the name of Nobility: and when fpeaking of the memorable 10th of Auguft, he tells us that, the few whom effeminacy or gold had corrupted, in vain attempted to defend the Palace." We doubt whether he would have been found at that time among the fupporters of Monarchy, though he has candour enough to confefs that he does not believe" the late unfortunate Monarch was an active enemy at least to his fubjects."

We shall not enter into any examination of the political topics contained in this pamphlet, because if our readers will have the goodness to recur to any good anfwers to any other Democratic book, the obfervations which are there made, will probably as well fuit the prefent pamphlet. We muft, however, give this author due praife for the ingenuity with which he endeavours to prove that the French have never for a moment aimed at equality of property as well as of rights,

a topic which we fhould have fuppofed even that doughty champion, Mr. Thomas Paine, had by this time given up as indefenfible.

After having waded through feveral pages, we begin to grow very impatient for the fubject promifed in the title page; and, not meeting it, we were inclined to turn to the latter part of the book, in the hope of feeing the printed lift which is there profeffed to be added; in this, however, we were alfo difappointed, the conclufion prefented no fuch addition; but on proceeding yet a few pages further, it fuddenly, prefented itself to us inferted in the middle of the book, without any introduction whatever, and totally unconnected with any thing preceding or fubfequent, if we except the few notes which are thinly fcattered in different pages. As this is the mode in which the lift is added, we thall make fome obfervations upon it in this place.

The object of the lift is to fhew the number of effective and non-effective officers in the militia, and we believe, every military man who reads it, will immediately difcover that it is calculated to mislead in every article, except in the very fmall. militia corps which do not confift of more than three companies, and where confequently the error would be too grofs to efcape detection. We will not take up our reader's time with many inftances, but will felect a few taken at random among the different regiments.

The Brecon and Monmouthshire (confolidated) regiment is faid to have 23 officers, and to want one; now this corps confifts of only fix companies, and confequently has but 18 commiffioned officers. Here, therefore, a greater number of officers is ftated than can belong to the regiment, and yet a deficiency is alledged. The Eaft Devon regiment confifts of Io companies, and confequently of thirty officers; the Dorfet of the fame number, yet the former regiment is stated to have 28 effective, and five non-effective, the latter 31 effective, and two non-effective. The Northamptonfhire has 10 companies, and confequently thirty officers, yet it is ftated to want three, exclufive of the thirty effective. The Somersetshire has twelve companies, and of courfe 36 officers. Yet, befides 34 effective, there are flated to be five non effective. The author, we know, will tell us, in anfwer to this, that, befides the officers attached to companies, there are in every regiment an adjutant, quarter-mafter, and furgeon, who may be reckoned feparately from the reft; but he, as well as every. other military man, muft know that the two former commiffions are borne almoft invariably in all regiments together with a lieutenancy, and that it has been the practice in the

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BRIT. CRIT, VOL. IV. JULY 1794.

militia

militia to permit the furgeon, and even his mate, to hold a lieu tenancy, or enfigncy alfo; and we believe no man in the army will fay that either of thefe officers are overpaid for the duty they do, by holding double commiffions; nor did it ever enter into the mind of any man to confider a regiment incomplete in its compliment of officers, because these commiffions were combined with others in the fame regiment. In the lift of the army, the vacant commissions are marked by points in the places where the names ought to stand, but no point is ever put in the place of the adjutant or quarter-mafter's name, because they also bear another commiflion in the regiment; nor do we conceive how a regiment can poffibly be called incomplete in officers, where no commiffion is vacant. This therefore appears to us very like a premeditated intention to deceive, and excite difcontent. Yet, as the author draws no inference from thefe fuppofed vacancies, nor prescribes any remedy, we are at a lofs to know where the grievance lies. Does he attribute to government the incomplete state in which he wishes to fuppofe thefe regiments to be, or would he have minifters iffue out prefs warrants to compel the country genilemen to accept of enfigncies in the militia? for even according to his own ftatement, and admitting the three vacancies in each regiment, which we have proved not to exist, a few enfigncies are the only commiffions vacant in each regiment.

As the militia is allowed by all to be in a very perfect ftate of difcipline, we do not think it has hitherto been materially injured by a want of officers; and as the numbers now exifting have been found fufficient for training the men, and as government does not iffue pay for the vacant commiffions, we do not think it will be very eafy to imprefs the public mind with much discontent on this ground. Of this the author feems to be confcious by an infinuation which he throws out in a fubfequent note, that if the vacancies among the officers are fo numerous, the number of men in each regiment may be equally incomplete. This inference the writer must know cannot be drawn from it; for the want of officers must proceed from there not being a fufficient number of perfons who chufe to offer their fervices; and, confidering of how temporary a nature the fervice is, we rather wonder that fo few fhould be wanting. But deficiencies in the number of men can only proceed from grofs neglects in the commanding officers, or in the deputy-lieutenants, who are to regulate the ballot.

Little further notice is taken of the militia, except now and then in a note, which bears no relation to the text of the book,