Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 269, August 18, 1827», sayfa 6

Absorbed as he was in the pursuits of public life, he did not neglect to prepare himself in silence for that higher destination, which is at once the incentive and reward of human virtue. His talents, superior and splendid as they were, never made him forgetful of that eternal wisdom from which they emanated. The faith and fortitude of his last moments were affecting and exemplary. In his forty-seventh year, and in the meridian of his fame, he died on the twenty-third of January, one thousand eight hundred and six.

THE LECTURER

VERTIGO, OR GIDDINESS

Vertigo, or giddiness, though unattended with pain, is, in general, of a more dangerous nature than the severest headach. Vertigo consists in a disturbance of the voluntary power, and in some degree of sensation, especially of vision; and thus it shows itself to be an affection of the brain itself; while mere pain in the head does not necessarily imply this, it being for the most part an affection of the membranes only. In vertigo, objects that are fixed appear to be in motion, or to turn round, as the name implies. The patient loses his balance, and is inclined to fall down. It often is followed immediately by severe headach. Vertigo is apt to recur, and thus often becomes frequent and habitual. After a time the mental powers become impaired, and complete idiocy often follows; as was the case in the celebrated Dean Swift. It frequently terminates in apoplexy or palsy, from the extension of disease in the brain.

Causes.—Vertigo is induced by whatever is capable of disturbing suddenly the circulation of the brain, whether in the way of increase or diminution: thus the approach of syncope, whether produced by loss of blood, or a feeling of nausea; blows on the head, occasioning a concussion of the brain; stooping; swinging; whirling; or other unusual motions of the body, as in sailing, are the ordinary exciting causes of the disease. Vertigo is exceedingly frequent at an advanced period of life, and generally indicates the approach and formation of disease in the brain. Accordingly, it is a frequent forerunner of apoplexy and palsy.

The immediate or proximate cause of giddiness, or vertigo, that is, the actual condition of the brain at the moment, is probably some partial disturbance in the circulation there; which all the occasional causes mentioned are obviously calculated to produce. It is more or less dangerous, according to the cause inducing it, and the state of the brain itself, which may be sound or otherwise. And as this cannot be certainly known, nor the extent of it when actually present, the event is of course uncertain. At all times, your prognosis should be guarded; because vertigo seldom occurs under favourable circumstances of age and general health; unless when produced by so slight a cause as bloodletting, or a trifling blow upon the head. Whenever vertigo recurs frequently, and at an advanced period of life; and more particularly when it is accompanied with drowsiness; weakness of the voluntary muscles; impaired memory, or judgment; or, in short, any other disturbance or imperfection in the state of the sensorial functions; an unfavourable result is to be expected; because all these afford decisive evidence of a considerable degree and extent of disease in the brain—Dr. Clutterbuck's Lectures on the Nervous System.

BATHING

In this season of the year, a few hints on the temperature of the body prior to cold immersion, may not unaptly be furnished. It is commonly supposed, that if a person have made himself warm with walking, or any other exercise, he must wait till he becomes cooled before he should plunge into the cold water. Dr. Currie, however, has shown that this is an erroneous idea, and that in the earlier stages of exercise, before profuse perspiration has dissipated the heat, and fatigue debilitated the living power, nothing is more safe, according to his experience, than the cold bath. This is so true, that the same author constantly directed infirm persons to use such a degree of exercise before emersion, as might produce increased action of the vascular system, with some increase of heat; and thus secure a force of re-action under the shock, which otherwise might not always take place. The popular opinion, that it is safest to go perfectly cool into the water, is founded on erroneous notions, and is sometimes productive of injurious consequences. Thus, persons heated and beginning to perspire, often think it necessary to wait on the edge of the bath until they are perfectly cooled.

USEFUL DOMESTIC HINTS

TAINTED MEAT

Meat tainted to an extreme degree may be speedily restored by washing it in cold water, and afterwards in strong camomile tea; after which it may be sprinkled with salt, and used the following day; or if steeped and well washed in beer, it will make pure and sweet soup even after being fly-blown.

TO BREW THREE BARRELS OF PORTER

Take one quarter of high-dried malt, with one or two pecks of patent malt; mash in the same manner as directed for beer. Add the following ingredients: eight pounds of good hops, one pound of liquorice root, two pounds of Spanish juice, half a pound of ground ginger, one pound of salt, eight ounces of hartshorn shavings, and four ounces of porter extract.

Separate the hops, and run the wort on them; when placed in the copper, and in a state of ebullition, infuse the whole of the other ingredients. Let it boil about one hour, or till you discover the surface of the liquor to become flaky, and the wort broken; then take it from the copper and strain it into the coolers. Now proceed in the usual way till it be fit to rack, which will be in about a fortnight; draw it off into another vat, in which let it remain three hours to settle, and in the mean time wash the cask quite clean; draw from the vat the contents, and return them to the cask, leaving the sediment that has lodged during the three hours. If the colour be not full enough, add, when racking, some brandy colouring, which soon gives to it that pleasing appearance peculiar to good porter. Do not fill the cask quite full; bung it close the following day, but leave the peg-hole open for a few days, or a week, according to the state of the atmosphere; peg it when you think it is fine; and if it appear to be fast approaching to clearness, and has stood long enough for the attainment of maturity, tap it, and draw it quickly; for porter, in cask, always requires a quick draught, and when it gets flat bottle it off as soon as possible.

It will improve greatly by standing a few months in the bottle.—The Vintner's Guide.

WELSH ALE

Pour forty-two gallons of water, hot, but not quite boiling, on eight bushels of malt; cover, and let it stand three hours. In the mean time infuse four pounds of hops in a little hot water; and put the water and hops into the tub, and run the wort upon them, and boil them together three hours. Strain off the hops, and keep for the small beer. Let the wort stand in a high tub till cool enough to receive the yeast, of which put two quarts of ale, or, if you cannot get it, of small-beer yeast. Mix it thoroughly and often. When the wort has done working, the second or third day the yeast will sink rather than rise in the middle; remove it then, and turn the ale as it works out; pour a quart in at a time, and gently, to prevent the fermentation from continuing too long, which weakens the liquor. Put a bit of paper over the bung-hole two or three days before stopping up.—Ibid.

MILK PUNCH

Pare six oranges and six lemons, as thin as you can; grate them after with sugar to get the flavour. Steep the peels in a bottle of rum or brandy, stopped close, twenty-four hours; squeeze the fruit on two pounds of sugar; add to it four quarts of water, and one of new milk, boiling hot; stir the rum into the above, and run it through a jelly-bag till perfectly clear. Bottle, and cork close immediately.—Ibid.

EXCELLENT LEMONADE

To the rinds of ten lemons, pared very thin, put one pound of fine loaf-sugar, and two quarts of spring-water, boiling hot; stir it to dissolve the sugar; let it stand twenty-four hours, covered close; then squeeze in the juice of the ten lemons; add one pint of white wine; boil a pint of new milk, pour it hot on the ingredients; when cold, run it through a close filtering-bag, when it will be fit for immediate use.—Ibid.

ARTS AND SCIENCES

ATTRACTION

Logs of wood floating in a pond approach each other, and afterwards remain in contact. The wreck of a ship, in a smooth sea after a storm, is often seen gathered into heaps. Two bullets or plummets, suspended by strings near to each other, are found by the delicate test of the torison balance to attract each other, and therefore not to hang quite perpendicularly. A plummet suspended near the side of a mountain, inclines towards it in a degree proportioned to its magnitude; as was ascertained by the wellknown trials of Dr. Maskeleyne near the mountain Skehalion, in Scotland. And the reason why the plummet tends much more strongly towards the earth than towards the hill, is only that the earth is larger than the hill. And at New South Wales, which is a point on our globe nearly opposite to England, plummets hang and fall towards the centre of the globe, exactly as they do here, so that they are hanging up and falling towards England, and the people there are standing with their feet towards us. Weight, therefore, is merely general attraction acting every where. It is owing to this general attraction that our earth is a globe. All its parts being drawn towards each other, that is, towards the common centre, the mass assumes the spherical or rounded form. And the moon also is round, and all the planets are round; the glorious sun, so much larger than all these, is round; proving, that all must at one time have been fluid, and that they are all subject to the same law. Other instances of roundness from this cause are—the particles of a mist or fog floating in air; these mutually attracting and coalescing into larger drops, and forming rain; dew drops; water trickling on a duck's wing; the tear-dropping from the cheek; drops of laudanum; globules of mercury, like pure silver beads, coalescing when near, and forming larger ones; melted lead allowed to rain down from an elevated sieve, which cools as it descends, so as to retain the form of its liquid drops, and become the spherical shot lead of the sportsman. The cause of the extraordinary phenomenon, which we call attraction, acts at all distances. The moon, though 240,000 miles from the earth, by her attraction raises the water of the ocean under her, and forms what we call the tide. The sun, still farther off, has a similar influence; and when the sun and moon act in the same direction, we have the spring tides. The planets, those apparently little wandering points in the heaven, yet affect, by their attraction, the motion of our earth in her orbit, quickening it when she is approaching them, retarding it when she is receding.—Arnott's Natural Philosophy.