ting to the public law of France-to the rights, duties, and liabilities of the citizen as such-the people have, in ordinary cases, the means of informing themselves without consulting a legal adviser. Almost all this part of our law is in our statute book, and as it is in general, more simple, and, at all events, more necessary to be known than any other, we have always desired a digest of it, either with legislative sanction, or otherwise. Nothing is risked, and every thing is to be gained by such reform. It is inconceivable, to those who have not had much experience, how difficult it is to find out what is the law on any of these subjects, among the loose and scattered, and often contradictory enactments of different legislatures. But does any one imagine, especially after the passages which I have cited from the French authorities, that every man in Paris is his own lawyer, or that the head of a professional man is less stored with recondite and extensive reading, and his pocket with liberal fees, than formerly? Nobody, we presume, can be under such a persuasion with regard to the Justinian collection. The very sight of the Corpus Juris Civilis is appalling. We have already alluded to the studies of its professors to the immense erudition of the Cujas' and the Godefroys'. And we will only add, that Justinian himself exacted a noviciate of five years in his law schools. We suspect that few of our young advocates have gone through as many months of solid study, before they passed muster as junior counsel.

As to the common law being scattered over so many volumes -it is just as reasonable as to say that the decalogue and the gospels are spread over whole libraries, and can only be learned through them because whole libraries have been written upon them. The cases which exhibit the rule in one important application of it, and which must be profoundly meditated by every one who aims at something more than being able to repeat a dry formulary like a parrot, are, indeed, to the honor of the law, numerous enough-almost as numerous as the infinite variety of human concerns require them to be. But the rules themselves are comparatively few. The proportion is precisely that between a report running through some scores of pages, and the marginal enunciation of the doctrine in as many lines, or words, it may be. Fearne's book may be cited as an example of this. The first two hundred pages are taken up with the discussion of little else than the rule in Shelley's case. Let any one who wishes to see how many volumes the principles of the common law, (and they are all that can be codified,) fill up, only make the experiment for himself. He will find

that the whole doctrine of contingent remainders lies within a very narrow compass, however refined the questions may be that arise out of it.

mer.

Then why not codify it? We answer, simply because it will cost a great deal to do so, and because, in the present state of our law, it can do very little good, and may do much harm. The digests which have already been executed by private hands, and which are improving every day, wholly supersede the necessity of such a work for professional purposes. If one of these were brought so near to perfection as to want only a legislative sanction to make it a code equal to that of the French, we should not desire to see it take that shape. Our objection depends upon the difference between written and unwritten law, and the danger arising out of the essential character of the forThe difference, as we have endeavoured to shew, is between what depends upon general reasoning and what depends upon verbal criticism. A rule is laid down in a digest: if it be inaccurately enunciated you go to the case which has settled it. Your remedy is in the report-you detect the error, and rectify it; and the precision and uniformity of the law is maintained. But from the moment you enact all those rules, they are adopted and promulgated as positive law and must be interpreted as such. You are to make a great bonfire of your libraries, and take a new start. If there is the least change or obscurity in the language, verbal criticism begins, and every thing that has been settled, is afloat once more, and the glorious uncertainty continues until as many more camel loads of reports, take the place of the old ones. Even supposing a code perfectly well done, we do not think the game worth the candle in the actual state of things-but if it be inartificially executed, the labours of six centuries are utterly thrown away.

But we are told, none of these consequences can take place, because we shall retain the common law nomenclature and still resort to it, for collateral light and illustration. Indeed! But how very imperfect and ineffectual such a reform would be. We have seen that all the conclusions of law are deduced, by a train of reasoning analogous to that of the mathematicians, from definitions. To retain the nomenclature, therefore, if we understand the meaning of that term, would be in fact to retain the whole body of the common law; and to have recourse to its text writers and reporters, would be only to aggravate the evils of which we complain.

Upon the whole, we would recommend to our younger friends, a profound study of our jurisprudence as it stands, rather than the ambition of reforming it. A thorough knowledge of

that jurisprudence, is a highly profitable and glorious distinction among men-especially in an intellectual and free country. In our own land, it is the way to every thing desirable, and must ever be so-and though practical cleverness and dexterous empiricism may, with the help of good fortune, achieve much, there is no hope so solid as that bottomed upon an honest, thorough-paced knowledge of the science. It is better than talentbut it helps talent-it is fuel for its fires, a lamp to its feet, and a staff of strength in its right hand.

ART. VI.-1. History of the Natural and Modified Small-Pox, or of the Variolous and Varioloid Diseases, as they prevailed in Philadelphia, in the years 1823 and 1824. By JOHN K. MITCHELL, M. D. and JOHN BELL, M. D. Attending Physicians at the then Small-Pox Hospital. North-Amer. Med. and Surg. Journal, Vol. II.

2. Report of the Committee of the Philadelphia Medical Society, appointed to collect facts in relation to the occurrence of SmailPox, in 1827-1828. North-Amer. Med. and Surg. Journal, Vol. V.

3. Annual Report of the Medical Officers of the National Vaccine Establishment of Great-Britain, for 1829-1830.

WE have made reference, at the head of the present article, to some very important documents upon a subject which has, for a long time, disturbed, and still continues to agitate the public mind. Professional treatises abound of Small-pox, Varioloid diseases, and Vaccine, but these are not, and ought not to be satisfactory to the community. Couched in technical language which is, in a certain degree, unintelligible to the general reader-filled with technical illustrations, which only serve to perplex and confound him-and dragging heavily through minute questions of technical detail, of which he cannot perceive the importance or even the relevancy, they are, by no means, fitted for promiscuous circulation. It cannot be doubted, that in a matter of this kind, where there is an evident, universal and pressing interest, the public have a right to call

upon the guardians of health-the physicians in whose hands they have placed their safety and their lives, for the results of their experience and observation. We had hoped to have been furnished by the members of our State Medical Society, with some document similar to those appealed to above, but have been disappointed.

Without any further preface, we shall proceed to a brief discussion of the several questions-of the identity of the variolous and varioloid diseases-of the value of the practice of inoculation of vaccination, revaccination, &c.

One would imagine, on listening to the language held by the common people, and, indeed, by many physicians, that Smallpox or, as it is nosologically written, Variola, is a disease of such definite history and appearance, that it were easy to distinguish any possible variations, and to separate from it, with precision, every similar or "counterfeit presentment " of analogous character. Others would have you believe, that some change must have taken place in its history, and that the modifications or varieties now forced upon our attention are new, and must be accounted for under some modern system of explanation. Both these views of the matter are erroneous. Let any distinct picture be drawn of Small-pox, and let the cases as they are recorded in books, or as they successively occur in practice, be compared with it, and we do not hesitate to affirm, that the exceptions will be found to be nearly, if not quite as numerous as the confirmations of the rule.

This assertion is easily proved. Thus, for example; all writers describe the disease under the two general heads of distinct and confluent, (phrases referring to the number of pustules) taking care to specify that the difference between these two is in degree and not in nature. How vague any such distinction is we surely need not say. Where is the line to be drawn in cases which approach the point of division? But it is acknowledged that the mere number of pustules is not, after all, the sole cause of this difference in grade; their location, also, must be considered, for, says Sydenham, "this disease is not to be esteem'ed dangerous, because the body is full of pustules, but from the 'great number of them in the face, for, if that be exceeding full, though they are but few, and those of the distinct kind 'every where else, yet the patient is equally endangered, as if 'all the limbs were extremely full."

6

All the older writers speak of irregular forms of Small-pox. Sydenham is particular in detailing the varieties which the disease offered in the several years of its epidemic occurrence unVOL. VII. NO. 14.

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der his own notice. Lieutaud speaks of a "spurious Smallpox," occasionally taken for the legitimate. Parr tells us that "the varieties of Small-pox are numerous." Others tell us of water pock, of wind-pock, stone-pock, &c. in almost unnumbered diversity. It was only among the English, and not by them, until the time of Heberden, that Varicella (Chicken-pox) was distinguished from Small-pox. Morton, of the time of Sydenham, speaks of it as mild Small-pox. His contemporary must so have regarded it, if he met with it at all. And though Heberden, Willis, Rayer and M'Intosh talk very positively of the distinctions between the two, yet other writers have not been able to mark them so clearly. Thomson, for instance, maintains Varicella, in all its varieties, to be a modified Smallpox. And while Willan recognizes it only as presented in the serous or vesiculous form, Rayer acknowledges, that it occasionally assumes a pustulous condition. With regard to the grade, which is made the source of distinction between distinct and confluent Small-pox, it should be remembered that Ring has given us a case of confluent Chicken pox, and that M'Intosh has recorded two fatal cases, one in a child, the other in an adult. Heberden speaks of a malignant sort of Chicken-pox, in which "the continuance of the pain and fever, after the ' eruption, and the degree of both these, though there be not ' above twenty pustules, are, as far as I have seen, what never hap'pens in the Small-pox. Chicken pox has been known to pit the skin, and modified Smali-pox often fails to do this. If we receive the diagnosis of M'Intosh, and others, who discern Chicken-pox by the succession of crops of pustules, what shall we say to Heberden's acknowledgment of his having seen four cases of its unequivocal occurrence in Small-pox? These are 'the only instances," he says, and his language is striking, "which have happened to me something like what is often talk'ed of a second crop."

It seems to us, that the above observations, in making which, we have referred in preference to the older writers, exhibit plainly enough the difficulty of distinguishing Small-pox from its kindred affections, if their actual identity be not established. The term, Varioloid, is a new one, signifying such a resemblance or analogy, as we have here indicated. This appellation has become" familiar in our ear as household words," and is meant to denote generally the eruptive fevers above designated, which men are unwilling to acknowledge to be true Small-pox, and yet which are so nearly similar as to be with

*

That is, by the profession; nurses and common people, had noted and named these varieties at least half a century before.