but there is much more needed than this in the private trading ship. So that it should surely be a point with the owners of such ships, only to engage a surgeon who binds himself to perform the voyage.

Sailors, like most other folks, do not relish too much work, and it is alleged that, occasionally, when any extra labour is on hand, they sham sickness to escape it. This I have no doubt is sometimes done; but I am also of the opinion, that it is sometimes laid to their charge when they do not deserve it; and as they are fully more likely to play the trick in the small merchant ship, where, from not being too well manned, the duty is sometimes very hard, so, the man who gets sick then, if his complaint is not a pretty palpable one, and particularly if he is known to be a lazy kind of chap, is more apt to be suspected; and the doctor may occasionally get a hint to blister severely, or punish in some other way like this, those they suspect to be skulking. But this is a point where the surgeon requires to use much caution; and, if he does wisely, he will

rather run the risk of being cheated, than needlessly give a man pain upon suspicions alone. He will generally be pretty well able to judge whether there be any thing wrong or not; yet, as he knows that a good deal may be wrong without him being able to see it very plainly, he will not, even in the case where he cannot discover much, form positive opinions against the man, or act rashly. If a man complains of head-ach, for instance, which he says is so severe as to incapacitate him from duty, although he cannot discover from the pulse, or any other index, that the headach really exists, yet knowing that for all that it may exist, and exist very severely too, we would act very unjustly and very inhumanly indeed, were we at once to brand the man for a skulker, and put him to unnecessary pain. In such cases by far the best way is, just to take the complaint for granted, and go on with the proper remedies; surely let us bleed, and blister, and purge, &c., &c.; for this is just the plan likeliest to remove the head-ach if it indeed exists; and if it does not, why then he certainly deserves all that is done to

him. But we are never to go farther than the symptoms he describes to us demand. We are never to give him the least reason to suppose that we suspect him; for if he finds this, he will perhaps, from mere obstinacy, determine to suffer all, and stand out against us. But we are just to treat him as he explains to us his complaintsand if he is a skulker, unless he is a very idle and a very strange fellow indeed, he will soon tire of our treatment, and be glad to exchange it for the ropes again.

It is a rule that when a seaman is put upon the sick list, his allowance of grog is stopped. It is supposed that then it is either improper for him, or that at all events he does not require it It is supposed too, that it prevents some from skulking who otherwise would. And this is all very true. But a sailor dislikes terribly to resign his grog. He looks upon it as one of his chief comforts; and for all we could lecture him to the contrary, he will continue to regard it as the best preservation of health he can get. And as there are some cases where we know all the spirit they

are allowed can do very little hurt, if there is no particular circumstance to forbid it, the surgeon will perhaps do best not to adhere too rigidly to the rule. When the complaint is a chronic one, the patient an old man, and known to be a good man, I think he had as well just let the grog go on; he will not, I know, find his practice the worse for it. There is, however, some caution

requisite in giving the indulgence.

Regarding practice itself, I shall not pretend to offer any thing. Mine of course has been very limited; and there are numerous and valuable sources whence the practitioner who enters upon the field of Indian practice, has it in his power to draw the knowledge which is to guide him till actual experience has taught him. I think, however, I may do what is not altogether useless, if I mention one or two of these sources. I may be excused if I just tell what authors I had, and from whom I thought I derived most instruction, when I entered upon the business. The only books I possessed, treating solely on the diseases of foreign climates, when I set sail

in the Lonach were: "Mosely on Tropical Diseases;" "Lind on Climate;" "Clark on long Voyages;" and "Johnson on Tropical Influence." Were I to say that I studied the three first without advantage, I would say what is not true. They are the performances of men who practised in very considerable fields, of men of acknowledged ability, and undoubtedly they are well worthy the perusal of the tropical practitioner. In Mosely and Clark, in particular, there is much valuable matter; and though their practice be not exactly the one which practitioners now-a-days place most confidence in, still will we be able to glean something from it. In Mosely we find yellow fever, and in Clark the dysentery, treated by no means inactively; treated, though not just so boldly, not much different from the way we treat them now. It is not difficult, I think, to see that the method of cure which they adopted in these complaints, is the very ground-work of the more efficient one we adopt now; and later physicians, Johnson with the rest, are not a little indebted to them