SPECTABILIA.
If a man be over distinguished, it will he owing more to his enemies than to his friends. His enemies keep him on the alert; his enemies will not suffer him to sleep ; and it is his enemies who teach him all that is worth being taught in this world, how to be useful, and how to deserve the good opinion of the good—The Yankee. (A weekly literary paper, by John Neal, some- time a sojourner in the " Old Country," now both an editor and a barrister in flourishing practice at Portland, the capital of Maine.) EDUCATION OF THE STOMACIL—To lay down general rules for dietetics— to predict or threaten the same terrific catastrophe to every sinning gourmond to explain by the same unvaried cause, " indigestion," every malanna- which flesh is heir to, is absurd, even when such generalizations are confined to a large class of society in this country, without wandering abroad. One can no more find two stomachs than two noses alike. The whole secret lies in learning how the stomach of our patient has been educated, and according to that education to deal with it. This involves an individuality in the at- tention to be given to cases of "stomach complaints," which physicians would find too troublesome; yet without it justice cannot be done to the patients. It is sheer nonsense to talk of classing human stomachs, and civilized stomachs; stomachs of drunkards, and stomachs of abstemious peo- ple; stomachs of aldermen, and stomachs of Pythagoreans ; stomachs of literary men, lawyers, physicians, and parsons, and stomachs of young col- legians, sportsmen, and dandies, under one and the same denomination and rule. Each has had its physical education as peculiarly different from that of the rest, as that which the possessor has received in the nursery or a college ; and each must be dealt with accordingly. A friend of mine, who had occasion to see a physician write several directions for invalids labouring under what are called "stomach complaints," wondered that he did not give a printed circular to each, in imitation of a great authority who had always the same printed page to refer to, and thus save himself trouble. Had he fol- lowed such a plan, he would have done his patients injustice ; for, as far as my own experience goes, I am confident he never met with Iwo stomachs like.—Granville's Si. Petersburgh.
AMERICAN THEORY OF HAPPIN ES s.—There are two ways of being happy. We may either diminish our wants, or augment our means. Either will do —the result is the same ; and it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that which may happen to be the easiest. If you are idle, or sick, or poor, however hard it may be to diminish your wants, it will be ea.ier than to aug- ment your means. If you are active and prosperous, or young and in good health, it may be easier for you to augment your means, than to diminish your wants. But if you are wise, you will do both at the same time, young or old, sick or well, rich or poor ; and if you are very wise, you will do both in such a way as to augment the general happiness of society.—The PALANGANAS, OR CHATTERERS OF LIMA.—The mulattos of Lima are reckoned to possess a great aptitude for trades, being the best shoemakers, tailors, barbers, carpenters, &c. From the church and the bar they are ex- cluded by the laws of the old re•gime: but many acquired a. knowledge of medicine ; and such is their extreme volubility, and the ease with which they express their opinions, that the nickname of palangana, or chatterer, is applied to all these classes. Sermons and preachers are favourite objects of their criticism, probably because it proves a never-failing source in Lima, which abounds in altars dedicated to saints; and a sermon, or rather an eulogium, upon the life and miracles of the principal saints, is given on their respective feast-days. It is on these occasions that the palanganas sel- dom fail to indulge in their. critical' propensity. They remember sermons that have been preached several years before, and when a friar repeats an old discourse, the palangana manifests his detection of it by violent gesticu- lation. One day a clergyman, wincing under the annoyance, exclaimed from the pulpit, " Turn out that Mulatto who disturbs me." " That," said the palangana, with characteristic readiness, "is the only thing that is new *; ail the rest of the sermon was preached two years ago, by Father Francisco, in the church of Santo Domingo." Sometimes a palangana not only re- members an entire sermon, but will versify it on the repetition. Mulatto ser- vants will sometimes repeat a sermon word for word as delivered, and often attract their master and his family to become auditors.—MiWer's Memoirs.
it This is not new. In fact we suspect the General has here made free with the property of his xianaeatike Joe.--SeseTAToa., MRS. SARAH J. HALE, A FEMALE EDITOR :—We see by the Boston papers that a woman is engaged there to conduct a periodical paper for women. This is as it should be. We know nothing of Mrs. Hale, but we mean to know a good deal of her by and by, if a tythe of what we are told of her merit be true ; and we wish her success with all our heart and soul. We hope to see the day when she-editors will be as common as he-editors ; and when our women of all ages (we do not speak of our ladies, nor of ladies- magazine people—but of every daughter of America) will be able to maintain herself, without being obliged to marry for bread. Keeping school is hard work, and so is keeping shop, though we rejoice to believe that lie-shop- keepers are beginning to perceive the propriety of employing poor girls, instead of poor boys behind their counters ; and so is keeping a boarding house ; and if we had the courage to do as the people of France do, teach our daughters easy and elegant trades of one sort or another, such as light engraving, watch-making, or the manufacture of jewellery, they might earn. much more in a much easier way than they do now, either by keeping school,. knitting stockings, making bonnets, or selling tape.—The Yankee.
RIHNOPLASTIC OPERATION.—A surgical operation for the formation of are artificial nose, on a patient who had lost his nose entirely, was performed. recently by M. Lisfranc at one of the hospitals in Paris. The skin intended to. form the new nose was carefully taken from the forehead, and the nasal opening being filled up with a dossel of lint of proper shape, the operation was coin. pleted, and a very good imitation of nature was produced. For sonic days the patient went on well, but subsequently the wound on the forehead became gangrenous, and he died. This result, however, appears to have been caused entirely by the diseased state of his body at the time of the operation.
DISSOLVENT POWER OF THE GASTRIC Juice.—It has long been a favourite hobby with Mr. Abernethy to attribute much of the dyspepsia with which persons of sedentary or irregular habits are afflicted, to the free use of liquids, by which the gastric juice of the stomach is so much diluted, as to be in- capable of performing with effect its dissolvent office. He has, therefore, recommended persons subject to indigestion, not to drink when they eat, but some time afterwards. Dr. Cormack, a physician of some eminence in Belfast, however, in an account of a case which he has recently published, asserts that the numerous experiments which he has made, convince him that the miraculous dissolvent property which Mr. Abernethy and others attri- hute to the gastric juice has no existence. He says, "The gastric juice has no dissolvent powers at all, at least not more than what is possessed by- any other watery and mucilaginous secretion. It is only secreted after the • deglutition of food, and so far from being designed for digestive purposes,, there is no evidence to prove that it is secreted in larger quantities than: suffice to lubricate the coats of the stomach in common with those of any: other viscus, and prevent the adhesion of the food."
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