in the bone capable of containing the little finger. After merely laying aside the horn for a few days the woman could open her mouth more than an inch. Ectropion is of very frequent occurrence in the male and very rare in the female. Cases of entropion in the latter occasionally appear, and trichiasis occurs daily. Glaucoma is mistaken by the native physicians for cataract. All opacities of the lens are denominated grey water,' and there are a few professed oculists who are in the habit of couching with a plain straight needle after having cut through the sclerotica with a common lancet. It is needless to add that the humours often escape and vision is lost.

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Mention is sometimes made of an individual near Tripoli who performs the lateral operation for lithotomy, but with what instruments has not been ascertained.

Phlegmonous tumors are treated with stimulating resinous ointments, which retard instead of promoting suppuration. Emollient poultices are considered as of little value, and, if used at all, are usually applied cold. Ulcers are also treated with resinous salves, and when these fail resort is had to the most vile and irritating applications, such as gunpowder, coarsely-powdered charcoal, and dung; and instead of being duly cleansed, they are scrupulously guarded from water. Most individuals have a great dread lest any one but a physician should see their sores, from a superstitious notion that the eye exerts an evil influence upon them. Pleasant odours are considered as highly injurious to patients affected with ulcers, and still more so in cases of fresh wounds; but disagreeable smells are accounted harmless, and so the patient goes about with an onion under his nose lest an agreeable odour should accidentally meet his nostrils and thereby injury to the sore be occasioned. Sinuous ulcers are plugged up with tents smeared with ointments of various kinds; and these are continued as long as any discharge takes place, it being supposed that the ulcer cannot heal until there remains no more pus to be discharged. These tents are often so enlarged and crammed into the cavity as effectually to keep down granulation, thus defeating the very end intended to be accomplished. Injections of corrosive sublimate are occasionally employed which often succeed by exciting inflammation and effusion of lymph, but the art of laying the cavity open, and allowing it to fill up from the bottom, is entirely unknown.

Inguinal hernia is one of the most common affections of the East; femoral hernia is rarely found. The relaxing influence of the climate doubtless contributes somewhat to the frequency of this complaint, but the most fruitful cause of it must be looked for in the use of the girdle. This universal article of dress, worn

in

in numerous folds around the body, is usually drawn so tight as greatly to compress the abdominal viscera and force them to seek an outlet at the inguinal canal as being the weakest part of the abdominal walls. Cases of incipient hernia, where the intestine had just passed the internal inguinal ring, have been checked by instructing the patient to relax his girdle and avoid hard exercise. The Arab physicians call these affections wind,' and have no idea how the bowels can protrude from their natural situation without any external wound. The actual cautery is often applied to stop this descent of wind, and it would not be safe to say that this proceeding might not, by the contraction of the cicatrix, result in arresting incipient cases. Trusses are little known and yield little benefit where they are known, because the patient cannot be induced to wear them perseveringly; and, from the same cause, cases of congenital hernia are never cured. Hydrocele and swelled testicle are also denominated 'wind;' the latter is often successfully treated by the actual cautery applied to the nape of the neck just below the hair. How far does this circumstance go to prove the connection between the cerebellum and the genital organs? Lumbago is called wind of the kidneys,' and hemorrhoids wind of the rectum.' Some few individuals have the art of opening hemorrhoidal tumours, when seated externally, with a pair of scissors. Great detriment is feared from a suppression of the hemorrhoidal discharge where it has been long established.

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In the treatment of gunshot wounds, little effort is made to extract foreign bodies or detached pieces of bone; instead of which great reliance is placed upon ointments which have the supposed faculty of drawing,' and whatever foreign substance may be present is left to come away with the discharge of pus. The actual cautery and compression are the only means employed to suppress homorrhage, the efficacy of ligatures and their mode of application not being understood. No precautions are taken to guard against secondary hemorrhage; and often, when the slough comes away, the patient dies from loss of blood, to the astonishment of surgeon and friends, who had supposed all danger from that source to be over because blood did not flow from the first.

Concussions from falls or from blows are treated with bloodletting without waiting for reaction. It is also common in such cases to wrap the patient in a warm sheepskin just stripped from the animal, lest the blood becoming cold should settle' in the injured part. Besides this, wherever it is practicable, the patient is made to drink a decoction of the hand or foot, or some other part, of one of the mummies brought from Egypt, and great reliance is placed on the efficacy of this vile stuff in preventing any unpleasant consequences. Fractures and dislocations are treated

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by a class of professed bone-setters.' Many times these impostors succeed in convincing a person who has received a slight sprain that it is a bad dislocation, and pull and tug thereat in order to magnify their own skill in the eyes of the beholders, and get a larger fee from the patient. Old women have sometimes acquired great celebrity in this sort of practice, generally by reducing luxations which never occurred, or fractures which never happened. In cases of undisputed fracture, tight bandages are applied without waiting for the occurrence or subsidence of swelling, and no effort is made to secure any degree of counter

extension.

In regard to the leprosy as at present existing in the East, it may be sufficient to remark that, besides the scaly eruption corresponding to the bohak of Moses, there are two other varieties, the one called jedham, which corresponds to the Lepra astrachanica as described in Tweedie's 'Medical Library,' the other called kurtum, from a root signifying to lop off,' corresponding to the usual descriptions of Lepra tuberculosa. Persons labouring under any variety of this disease are for the most part assembled at Damascus, where they live in a separate quarter though they are not excluded from communication with others. They are supported in part by charity, and in part by legacies to their community. There is also a collection of these miserable creatures in Jerusalem.

Insanity is generally attributed to Satanic possession, and no remedies are used for it except confinement, exorcising, or a pilgrimage to the shrine of some saint. Khat, writing, alluded to previously, is supposed often to be a cause of mental derangement, and counter-writing' is the only remedy relied upon.

Gonorrhoea and syphilis are confounded by the generality of practitioners, and are treated alike. The syphilitic ulcer is treated with the vapour of cinnabar; and secondary syphilis with a preparation of mercury, corrosive sublimate, carbonate of ammonia, and sulphur sublimed together and exhibited in the form of pills or powders.

This subject might be pursued almost indefinitely, nor would it be devoid of interest to go somewhat minutely over the Arab materia medica and pharmacopeia. But neither time nor the limits of this paper, which has already exceeded its intended bounds, will allow of any further prosecution of the subject.

LETTER

LETTER AND SPIRIT

IN THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES.

THERE is a great law in the construction of the Old Testament system which explains the principles of its connection with the New Testament Scriptures. Without the possession of this key, our knowledge alike of the institutions and historical events of the Old Testament will only serve to introduce obscurity and confusion into our views of Divine truth. The grand peculiarity in the old dispensation, to which we refer, consists in the Divine adjustment of its external form to an inner and spiritual reality, with which it agrees in the way of analogy, or in respect of certain principles common to both. These principles, it must be observed, never constitute the essence of the reality represented, but only bear towards it the relation of outlines; so that the former differs from the latter as shadow from substance, as flesh from spirit. These shadowy representations divide themselves under two heads-the first, known in the language of theology by the name of types; the second, a certain modification of the types, but agreeing with them in all their essential characters except one, which we shall, for the sake of convenience, take the liberty of designating by the name of type-symbols. We are now, in order to an exact elucidation of our subject, to attempt a particular statement of the rules which govern the formation of these figurative representations of Divine truth, constituting 'the letter' of Old Testament Scripture. We shall thus, at the same time, have an opportunity of distinguishing them from certain other methods of conveying spiritual truth on the principle of similitude, with which they are liable to be confounded, but which do not belong properly to the letter of Old Testament Scripture, and which, whether occurring in the Old or New Testament, require to be treated on different principles.

I. Type.-1. A type is a thing earthly and real, representing another thing also real, but in its nature spiritual, and to be revealed in future time. The serpent lifted up on the pole for the healing of the wounded Israelites, was a type of Jesus lifted up for the salvation of sinners. The redemption of Israel from Egypt by Moses, was a type of the redemption of the true Israel from the bondage of sin by Jesus Christ. These were real and present earthly things, representing future spiritual things. They were '(earthly) shadows of (spiritual) things to come.'

Since all the spiritual blessings represented by the earthly figures of the law arise out of the advent and death and resurrection of Christ, the things to come,' which these figures anticipated, are the blessings procured and made manifest by the finished work of Christ. The first tabernacle,' says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, was a figure for the time then present (hath been a figure unto the present time), in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience; but Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.'

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Farther, since every saving benefit communicated to sinners by Jesus Christ exists primarily in Christ himself, and is possessed by his people in virtue of their union to him, it follows that Christ himself is the primary and proper antitype of every Old Testament type representing good things to come. They were 'shadows of things to come, but the body is of Christ.' Thus the sacrifices of the law represent primarily Christ's perfect sacrifice; and secondly, the services of believers united to him, sanctified and rendered acceptable through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.' In like manner, Christ, the high priest of our profession, is the proper antitype of the Aaronic priesthood, and he alone possesses a personal right to enter into the holy place not made with hands. The type of the earthly priesthood has its antitype only secondarily in Christ's people, qualified to come near God through their union to their Head, an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.'

Ac

It must, at the same time, be observed, that as the dispensation of types represents the good things of Christ's kingdom, and as these consist largely in a victory achieved by Christ over the powers of evil, and a deliverance from sin given to sinners by Jesus Christ, typical representations necessarily comprehend numerous figures of sin and sinners, and the evil effects of sin, as well as of Christ, by whom the power of sin is overcome. cordingly, when we say that a type represents a spiritual thing, we only intend to intimate that its antitype is never an earthly thing like itself, in its own nature neither good nor evil, but a future reality, good or evil, existing in the spiritual sphere. Thus Hagar and Ishmael represent the church of the fleshly Israel carnal and in bondage under the law, and destined to be cast out of the house of God. The leprosy is a type of sin, with its polluting

and