Indigestion is the most popular disease of the day :
treatises upon it have taken the place of dissertations on morality : every thing is attributed to the stomach. Dr. MAYo knows parents who, when their children are naughty, give them doses of calomel, instead of whipping them. So that not only the schoolmaster is abroad, but the doctor also ; and, instead of flourishing birch in places of education, they will shake the calomel-bottle: a method of correction which will show at one moment the state of morality in the school—if the mercury should be low, it will prove that the morals are had.
The merit of Dr. MA.vo's treatise is, that it divides the diag- nosis of indigestions into temperaments : the author shows, that indigestion, in one set of persons, may not only be indicated by different signs than in other persons of another class, but the treatment which might cure the bilious, might only aggravate the disease of the nervous temperament.
Dr. MAYO is methodical, like all Oxford men : perhaps he sacrifices too much space to method ; and a desire to write an elegant style encourages the vice of vagueness. Mr. JUICES'S treatise is a valuable little family work ; and if he succeed in procuring a more general use of the mechanical con- trivance known under the French term of lave?nent, for the pur- pose of producing the same effect as aperient medicine, he will be a benefactor of mankind.
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