therefore had not even asked him who he was: but at the end of that period, a man, seemingly in good health, and decently dressed, came to the sick and hurt office, and returned him thanks for his cure, which he assured him had been entirely brought about by the free use of honey."

I beg leave just to observe, that as there are several species of asthma, arising from different causes, and in some degree differing in their effects, though generally distin guished by the appellations of the humid or moist, and dry or spasmodic, it can scarcely be expected that the same medicine should be efficacious for all or both of them; however, the honey, which seems peculiarly adapted to the dry asthma, can produce no ill effect on the moist, and is known to be in many other respects very salutary. The herb horehound has likewise been experimentally found efficacious in asthmatic complaints; a strong decoction of it habitually drunk in a morning, fasting, and two or three times or oftener in the day, of the quantity of a large tea-cup, or half a pint, has been known to be successful in relieving the dry asthma, so far as to render its paroxysms very tolerable, and without much inconvenience; and, for the humid, I believe, it seldom fails if persevered in, as may be judged from its salutary efficacy in defluxions, and curing the worst of colds. From the experience I have had of it on myself, in my own family, and others, I am sure that I am justified in thus recommending it, as well as Culpepper, from whom I originally had it, and whom others will do well to consult. H. MUGG.

MR. URBAN,

A CONSTANT Reader inquires, whether there be any cure for the asthma. Being myself affected with asthmatic complaints, I am equally with him desirous of information on the subject; but apprehend that a rational mode of treat ment must be adapted to the particular circumstances of the case, the detail of which would scarcely be admissible into your publication. You will give me leave, however, to acquaint him, that I had laboured under a troublesome cough for some time, which, during the three winter months, bore the character of a common catarrhal cough. At length it abated considerably in the day time, but returned with sudden violence at going to bed, and at, or soon after, getting up in the morning, beginning and accompanied with a sense

of stricture about the sternum, with short difficult respiration. In this state it was nearly allied to asthma; or, rather, it might be considered as a variety of that disease. Opium and æther afforded me relief; but I was unwilling to persevere in the use of such mixture, because of the effects of opium on the system; therefore, at the suggestion of an acquaintance, I was induced to make trial of mustard seed, and think I have derived great benefit from it. I take about a tea-spoonful of white mustard seed bruised, and made into a bolus with a very little honey, two or three hours before going to bed, and as much more when I awake at 6 or 7 in the morning. The consequence has been, that I have little or no cough or sense of stricture at night, only a slight easy expectoration in the morning, and am freer from all uneasy sensation about the thorax in the course of the day. Let me add that the greater number of cases of inveterate asthma are too obstinate to yield thus readily, and some are deemed incurable. It is my sincere wish that your Constant Reader's may not be of this latter class; and that he or some other fellow-sufferer may find relief from the use of so innocent a remedy as that proposed by,

Yours, &c.

1800, April.

W.

MR. URBAN,

IN some of your last numbers, I have noticed several prescriptions for the relief or cure of asthmatic complaints; and I have no doubt but that most, or all of them, have been, and may be, of service in particular cases. Of a perfect cure of an asthma, I never heard ; though I am sensible that, by proper management, the complaint may be removed for considerable intervals of time. Being one of the unfortunate brotherhood, though no member of the faculty, I am anxious to contribute my mite to the relief of some of my fellow-sufferers; and I think I could not well pitch upon an easier mode of communication, than by requesting you to allot a corner of your valuable Repertory to a few lines of mine upon the subject.

My complaint is what is called a dry asthma. I have had it from a child; at intervals perfectly free; the fits returning sometimes when least expected, and not easily got the better of when you suffer them to take possession for any length of time. They come on generally at night, after having been in bed a little while; are longer or shorter

according to circumstances, and according to the resistance the patient makes. For, independently of every other remedy, I must advise to leave the field of battle to the enemy on its first appearance; I mean, to get out of bed immediately, and sit down in an easy chair in an erect posture.

I remember, amongst many other intervals of different durations, two in my life of about eighteen months each, during which I never remained for more than one hour in bed in the night, on account of this troublesome disorder, sitting up the remainder of the night under the most painful anxiety, which nothing at that time could remove, but which was to be endured with a perfect resignation. Several remedies were tried to no purpose; and the only relief I could procure myself was, every now and then, by abstaining for a week or a fortnight from going to bed at all.

I need not tell those, who are experimentally acquainted with the nature of this disorder, to what a situation the body was reduced under such a long and unceasing affliction: but I must hasten to tell them how I got the better of the enemy, so as, if not to destroy him, at least to blunt his power; for, thank God! I have been now a great many years, by an incontrovertible experience, perfectly the master to prevent a fit of asthma, whenever, by some cause or other, an asthmatical disposition has got into the habit of the body, and which is, of consequence, itself very soon removed. The thing is not new, and, perhaps, I have myself contributed a good deal to its being better known, though its efficacy has not always been admitted. It is nothing more or less than a strong infusion of coffee.

I was led to try it in the last of those long asthmatical affections mentioned above; however, without much faith in the remedy, considering it merely as one of those nostrums which one meets with so frequently in society for every disorder. But, to my utmost astonishment, one night, after having for the first time taken a strong infusion going to rest, I slept that night as soundly as ever I did in my life, without the least touch of asthina whatever. The experiment was too beneficial to me not to try again and again; and it has been constantly attended with the same success. I at that time got, after a few doses, entirely the better of that long asthmatical affection; and, at every recurrence of the disorder I have recourse to the panacca, which proves to be

one to me.

My way of taking it, is one or two dishes, as hot as I can

possibly bear it, going to bed immediately afterwards: half an ounce at least to every cup, which I render palatable with sugar and a little cream.

A long continuance of the use of strong coffee will affect the nerves, no doubt; but one good fit of asthma, I am satisfied, shatters the nerves much more than many pounds of coffee; and, in this instance, of two evils we must, as in every other, choose the least.

1800, July.

A NEW CORRESPONDENT.

CIII. Singular Predilection for the Term of Forty Days.

MR. URBAN, Wells, Norfolk, Aug. 28. THE founders of our legal polity, when they have had oc casion to limit a short interval of time for any particular purpose, have shewn a strong predilection for the term of forty days; e. g.

Anciently no man was suffered to abide in England above forty days, unless he were enrolled in some tithing or decennary." Blackstone's Comm. I. 114.

"Vidua maneat in capitali messuagio mariti sui per qua draginta dies post obitum mariti sui infra quos dies assigne tur ei dos sua." Mag. Chart. c. VIII.

"Il que tient per un fee de service de chivaler covient estre ove le roi per 40 jours bien et convenablement array pour le guerre." Litt.95.

"By privilege of parliament, members of the House of Commons are protected from arrest for forty days after every prorogation, and forty days before the next appointed meeting." Blackstone's Comm. I. 165.

The acts for preventing the introduction of the plague direct" that persons coming from infected places must remain on ship-board forty days before they be permitted to land."

Many more instances might be produced; but it will suffice to observe, that the period we are speaking of is so well known in the law as to have acquired a peculiar denomination, that of quarantine, a distinction which, I be

*

Blackstone's Comm. II. 135.

lieve, is not bestowed on any other portion of the year except its usual calendary divisions.*

The frequent adoption of this precise interval, which constitutes no aliquot part of the year, nor is capable of an aliquot division into months or weeks, is somewhat extraordinary; yet it would be a little unfair to presume that our ancestors, in this instance, were actuated by mere caprice. Perhaps it may be no improbable supposition, that their preference arose from finding the period in question connected with some remarkable events in Sacred History; and that it is so connected, will appear from the following

coincidences:

The diluvial rain lasted forty days.

The three miraculous fasts of Moses, Elijah, and our Saviour, lasted each forty days.

The Christian Lent continues forty days,

These, it must be confessed, are very striking; and perhaps no other arbitrary portion of the year has ever been sa highly distinguished.

Those who are in the habit of reflecting upon the operations of the human mind, well know, that although, in a contest of motives, the will ever yields to the stronger, yet in matters of indifference, where the judgment is suspended in equilibrio, and yet must decide, the most trifling circumstance, the most remote allusion, is sufficient to turn the scale.

1800, Sept.

TELONICUS.

*The preference of the number 40 is not confined to matters of time only; forty shillings is the qualification of a freeholder at an election; forty shillings the limited value for causes in the county-court, the court-baron, &c.