Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Pharmaceuticals, Medical Treatment, Crime, Mental Illness, Phrenology, Education, Human Development

    Notes the strange cure for epilepsy prescribed by George Bate in his Pharmacopeia but points out that physicians of Bates' day 'practised according to the science of the period'. Comparing medical practitioners to lawyers, notes that 'judges and magistrates' only 'administer punishments [...] conformably to the rules of the faculty' but regards this as a reason for criticising a sentence without attacking the judge. Objects strongly to a judge's decision to flog a ten year-old child for theft, and thinks education rather than flagellation is the proper way of removing the child's 'constitutional propensity to steal'. Discusses the phrenologists' claims regarding the faculty of 'acquisitiveness' and points out that illustrations of this can be seen in the London shop of Cornelius Donovan, the phrenologist.