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¦ 'Tfthfc 17. 1855.1
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AN INQUIRY CONCERNING RELIGION. An Inqui...
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A BATCH OF BOOKS. Bllie ; or the. Human ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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M'Cormac On Consumption. On The Nature, ...
rtw ™« ible efficient cause of tubercle . It is most certain that persons born of & ££ ** parenTs become tuberculous after sufficient exposure to the exciting caose Soause s For the first time in the history of the disease , I Would proclaim that phthisis t SsolutelvVit bincur control , that no one need become consumptrve ^ ho does not
choose it . On the nature of tubercle he says : — , . . Tor the first time in the history of disease , the proximate source of tubercle deposited , in my opinion ! capable of exact demonstration . The problem of causation may now , in fine , teToIved Tuberculoua , scrofulous deposits , then , whether in the offspring of scrofulous , Snsumpt ' ive parL ; s , or ' the offspring of persons free from scrofulous , tuberculous disease , SeaWke and in every case , wing to the insufficient , imperfect performance of the respiratory function . The carbon Is retained , in other * ords , it is not d . scliarged ^ or Scien ^ di . charged from the blood in the lungs , and finding no adequate outlet by the ffiw ? Ain , or other possible emunctories , being neither burnt off in the lungs nor expended In the tissues , is deposited , mainly as a hy drocarbon , in the lungs and other organs under the form of the bodies known by the designation of tubercles . The last link id the chain of causation , the bond of inference here seems clear to demonstration . Ilie carbon taken into the svstem , in consequence of the vice of respiration , is not sutnciently burnt off in the lungs , is not adequately discharged by the liver or the skin is not deposited as sub-cutaneous fatis not eliminated otherwise . \ V hat then
be-, comes of it ? The reply to this is , we find it in the foreign bodies which we term tubercles—bodies which inevitably form , when respiration , or rather a respiratory risus , is continued bevond a certain period in a corrupt and effete atmosphere . A diseased action is necessarily set up , the carbon finds no sufficient natural outlet , and tubercles , h . cilc , wasting , final decay , and death , are the result . I do not at all mean -to assei . that a irerely superfluous supply of carbon lerds to tuberculous deposits . What I mean is , that an imperfect respiratory process fails to purify and renew the blood , which , thus loaded with excretions and foulnesses , has , as it were , no alternative but to deposit them as tubercles , with all ( heir consequent train of evils , in the different tissues . Carbon , indeed , continues to be burnt off during the whole period of tuberculous deposit and softening , nature ' s abortive , simply because too commonly unaided struggles , with disease . But if so , it is under irregnlar , abnormal conditions , and as before , under circumstances which preclude the healthy , efficient discharge of the respiratory function .
We have already confessed the incompetence of this court to decide on a question which pathologists alone can rightly decide on ; but & s physiologists we put in a demurrer . On the nature of tubercle we are silent ; on the physiological action which Dr . M'Cormac assumes as the cause of tubercle , we entirely dissent from him . With this caveat , let us pass on to his exposition of the Proximate Cause of Consumption . We do not , after a due consideration of the Greek , Roman , and Arabic medical records , I conceive , find that phthisis , by them indeed often confounded with other aiseases of the theracic organs , occupied that place in their attention which , had it been equally frequent in their times as in ours , it must needs have done . The ordinary habit of the ancients—Greeks , Romans , and Arabs alike—was not only to spend agreat . deal of their lives in the open air by day , but also to pass the night in chambers cornirmnicadifferent Jhe shut
tingby an open door -with an open court . Modem usages are very . - up bed-room , with its closed doors and windows , its curtains , carpets , blinds , and Hangings ; in . short , its every apparent expedient for promoting the stagnation and impurity of the atmosphere is now the rule , as in former times it was the exception , it we admit , as we must needs admit , that air was given to be respired , and the lungs to respire it withal , how shall we explain our management of the atmosphere , -which we treat as if air pure and unalloyed , were not day and night , ever and always , the most absolute and unconditional of all r . quirements , impossible short of disease and death to be done without ? The habits and uragesof daily life , the palliiuion sought m , it not yielded ly our climate , the requirements , real or artificial , of trade , commerce , industry , combined with tho almost incr . diblc ignorance and indifference as to organic necessities of the masses , all unite to create and aggravate the disastrous results flowing from the respiration of an atmosphere loaded with human excretions , and almost utterly unlittqd
for human requirements . Nay , he tells us that even silkworms , housed in close-heated , ill-ventilated rooms , as in Italy and the South of France , are subject to tubercle ; and whatever may be the nature of tubercle , it is certain that defective respiration plays a most important part , if not the whole , in developing consumption . The reader curious in this subject is referred to Dr . M'Cormac ' s treatise ior fuller details ; our object is attained in bringing forward the leading idea . Consumption is too terrible and familiar a malady not to make every one anxious to get some light on it ; and although wo must await the decision ol more competent judges before introducing Dr . M'Cormac ' s theory , as the theory on the subject , we feel called upon to give our readers the benefit ol the suggestion of a new theory . The book is a very small book , and crowded with erudition , ai : d with interesting facts .
¦ 'Tfthfc 17. 1855.1
¦ 'Tfthfc 17 . 1855 . 1
THE i ^ EA & JE ft . 13 & 1
An Inquiry Concerning Religion. An Inqui...
AN INQUIRY CONCERNING RELIGION . An Inquiry concerning Relig ion . Bv Gioorgo Long , Author of an " F . may oh the Moral " Nutme of Man , " " The conduct of Life , " & c . Longman . Mr . Long toll us that these pages " contain the result of reading and reflection on subjects of unrivalled importance , commenced at an early age and continued through a long life . " The Avork , indeed , exhibits nil tho moral qualities which should characterize an inquirer after truth . It is calm , candid , and charitable ; and its tone , rather than its matter , Ijiik enabled us to read it through with pleasure . Mr . Long , however , docs not seem to us to have mastered the subject , or even to bo aware of many of the diUiculties , philosophical and critical , which have compelled not a few of the most learned divines and tho be « t men of this ago , to renounce or suspend
their belief in Christianity . For example , he argues in favour oi the authenticity of tho 1 Hatory of Christ au though the only alternative were either to accept that history as it stands in the ( Jospels and the Aetn , or to regard tho whole as a figment , and leave Christianity without any assignable origin . We need hardly say the received theory on tho other sitlo ia , that tho Gospels and Acts contain a lurgc element of true natural hbuory , Surrounded with a supernatural halo by the fancy of an ago when miracles ¦ tvere supposed to he things of common occurrence , or the root of evil as well as of good , and epilepsy was taken for domoniuc pun :- ;* , union . Lot Mr . JLon $ take any life of a Roman Catholic saint , that of > St . Francis Xavier , for instance , or { St . l'hilip Neri . Mo will find in it a banis of historical truth—the actual life of the man , the doctrines he taught , the naincHof his disciples , the order or other institutions that he founded , & e . —surrounded
by a grateful and ardent imagination , with a halo of what all buttery ignorant and credulous Roman Catholics admit to be false miracles . Mr . Long devotes a good deal of space to an attempt to exhibit and harmonise the e \ idence for the Resurrection and Ascension ; and justly , for that part of the Gospel history is not only of unspeakable importance , but , critical ^ , seems destined to be the expcrimenlum crvcis . He , however , while far more candid thau apologists in general , assumes , like apologists in general , that the discrepancies of the narrative are only of a minor kind , and such as rather confirm than invalidate the reality of the main event , instead of amounting , as they do , to a total diversity , extending even to the place of the Ascension . He is driven to account for the absence of any specific mention of the Ascension in three out of the four Evangelists , by saying that the Gospels of Matthew and Mark were left unfinished , and that John omitted the fact , because it had been recorded by Luke . When critics resort to these strong hypotheses to get out of Biblical difficulties , they should remember that they are not even dealing with ordinary histories , narrating common facts , but with what are tendered us as the inspired records of those events on which the salvat ' on of the world depends . We
have scarcely a right to expect in such records more than common accuracy and argument . Let us also observe that it is a principle sufficiently established in profane criticism , that you cannot separate all the details of an event from the event itself . We have not space even to glance at all the divisions of Mr . Long ' s work . " The Being and Attributes of God , " " Natural Religion , " the Evidences of the Truth of the Christian Religion , " " the Progress , Present Sta . e , and Future Prospects of Christianity . " He treats the whole in the sp-jiit of a sensible Christian layman , whose heart is much more set on the ethics than 01 the dogmas of his religion . He wishes to reform the national church by enib acing in it all who are content to accept as the bond of communion a purely scriptural creed and liturgy . This is the natural aspiration of a revolted b lice movements and
religious and intelligent layman y surp Gorham controversies . If such an extension of the national church could take place , we should regard it as a great gain , even to those who might still be excluded from the pale ; and certainly it is quite as great an advance as the main body of the nation are prepared for in the direction of libe . ty and truth . But looking to the present state and relations of the various parties , such a consummation seems almost hopeless . It would , of course , be necessary to eliminate the high church party , who to be sure would not suflter any great hardship in being compelled to migrate to that portion of the vineyard ( as Dr . Pusey calls it ) to which their doctrines and practices belong . But would it not also be necessary to give up the evangelical party to whom certain Calvinistic glosses upon Scripture ( which Mr . Long repudiates ) are quite as dear and essential as the Scripture itself ?
There is one thing about this book which gives us great . satisfaction , and that is to see a religious layman earnestly examining the evidences of Christianity . It is from laymen that the decision of tins tremendous controversy must come . Clergymen , especially clergymen of this establishment , are bound not only in interest , but in honour , to uphold the doctrines ot their Church . When a clergyman like Dr . Hampden , Mr . Maurice , or Dr . Donaldson , dare attempt free inquiry , he becomes immediately the object of general reprobation and attack by his brethren , who hasten to put on
the screw of the Thirty-nine Articles , and the Athanasinn (' reed . Educated laymen , who have leisure , must train themselves to religious inquiry . They must not only cease to regard such inquiry as a province from which they are excluded , but they must regard it as a province peculiarly their own . They alone arc free to sock the truth . To them belongs the solution of a , question unparalleled for importance in all the domain of science and throughout the history of man . Humanity will for ever thank and bless all who , being duly qualified , earnestly devote themselves to the task .
A Batch Of Books. Bllie ; Or The. Human ...
A BATCH OF BOOKS . Bllie ; or the . Human Corned ,,. By John Estcn Cooko Sampson , Low , and Co . Tins is another of tho American reprints , which have been growing ; very ' plentiful lately , and which , there is jpriuta facie cause for believing , hud favou r with some mysterious division of the reading public . . 1 he book now unde r notice contains a ftory written with didactic purposes vory indistinctly btntod in a preface . The writer ' s chief and novel aim , however , being to paint human bdims « h they think and act , when moved by those clivers and conflictiiio- pasBioiia and emotions which are tho common inheritance ot humanity , ' we arc hcarcely surprised at being to'd , m "tldiUon , that the boo !; is " intended to contain types , so to apeak , of human hie ; and Still lcis are we astonished to find that it does not . In tlio heroine , wo are required to notice » the influence of purity and Belt-sacrifice , even when th . vure cxemplilh . d in iho character and nctioiiB of a child ; but wo are soii-y 10 » ay that Kllii-, though undeniably angelic , does not fulfil the things which are promised mid vowed in bcr name ; inasmuch as all the good people fuciu to derive their uoodncHB from a source independent o her ' oharact-r and actions , " und all the bud people who are converted , are converted without her h . l ,.. After Kllie , the author ' s favourite character , and iiicdium for the . spread ofinon . l He . ntimcntu , is a Mr . Imledon , whoso Hpociuhticfl arc l ,. lovoli !» n to principle ; 2 , great strength of wind ; 3 , a ( li nilud calmness , wind , has tho roiimrk-blo effect of driving antagoniaLB to tho necWy ot grind ng their Uselh ; and , 4 , a passion for unheiutonublo interview ! , will en he nhvay . s conclude- l » y buying to li » victim " My aM , won i « -owiue or K ., in . thing to tlu . L ellect . Oppoeed to Mr . Inokdo .. » . I . « «« ™ £ ™ d villain oftluf . ale , a Mr . Fnntfeh , who i » ho olten win u J «> c »• MUM r . c ll . ut we con ,, ' at length to regard hi ? normal «>»>&* ' ' ? , ; ' £ ' \ ** ° gut * throuuh a couiveuf dreadful ^^ X ,. ' ^ u ' riU ' Other region ind virtue l » y being pitched on ; Jl ^' , ; rJ . ; ,, , jlirt U < . olc . Thoro equally truthful repreHonlut . ons ol l . iin . nj . " < y ^ ' ^ () j , ,, u , kicht urguh a Doctor 1 ' oHHyl , a eyn . c and iiinlcrm * t , «¦ I i ^ . ^^ netB of iiicnts , on purpose that they may bo ( '"' .- . led editor . There it * a Rood Mr . Siuisouey , u bonuvoloiif , but , wciik- } . . tjeu | H 1 . u youth , deal oi juvenilo virluii in luwly Iilo , bc » idc « J-wu . J
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 17, 1855, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17111855/page/19/
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