METAPHYSICS AND MEDICINE.

Many ingenious treatises on metaphysics and morality appeared in the course of this reign, and a philosophical spirit of inquiry diffused itself to the farthest extremities of the united kingdom. Though few discoveries of importance were made in medicine, yet that art was well understood in all its different branches, and many of its professors distinguished themselves in other provinces of literature. Besides the medical essays of London and Edinburgh, the physician’s library was enriched with many useful modern productions; with the works of the classical Freind, the elegant Mead, the accurate Huxham, and the philosophical Pringle. The art of midwifery was elucidated by science, reduced to fixed principles, and almost wholly consigned into the hands of men practitioners. The researches of anatomy were prosecuted to some curious discoveries, by the ingenuity and dexterity of a Hunter and a Monro. The numerous hospitals in London contributed to the improvement of surgery, which was brought to perfection under the auspices of a Cheselden and a Sharpe. The advantages of agriculture, which had long flourished in England, extended themselves gradually to the most remote and barren provinces of the island.