consulted, and he accordingly constructed the instrument to which we have alluded, and which differs only from the hydrometer in its scale; so completely has it answered the object of its construction that the milk now brought to market is very rarely found to have been _watered_. We might now proceed to the consideration of various other articles which are pre-eminently the objects of fraudulent adulteration, but neither our time, nor space, will allow the digression; nor indeed should we have entered into the discussion, but to preserve the order and uniformity of our subject, and to shew its relations to chemical as well as medical inquiry. With respect to the adulteration of our medicinal articles, we have already pointed out (p. 20) the law by which the College of Physicians is empowered to search apothecaries’ shops, and to destroy such drugs as may be spoilt or adulterated; we have only in this place to repeat our desire that its jurisdiction may be enlarged. Very few practitioners have an idea of the alarming extent to which the nefarious practice of medicinal adulteration is carried, nor of the systematic manner in which it is conducted; and it would perhaps have been deemed a duty to have entered into a few details upon the subject, had not the author already published in his PHARMACOLOGIA (_edit. 5th_) an account of the various modes in which our remedies are thus deprived of their most valuable properties, and described the tests by which such frauds may be discovered. POLICY OF INSURANCE ON LIVES. “An insurance upon life is a contract by which the underwriter for a certain sum, proportioned to the age, health, profession, and other circumstances of that person, whose life is the object of insurance, engages that the person shall not die within the time limited in the policy; or if he do, that he will pay a sum of money to him in whose favour the policy was granted. Thus, if _A_ lend £100 to _B_, who can give nothing but his personal security for repayment; in order to secure him in case of his death, _B_ applies to _C_ an insurer, to insure his life in favour of _A_, by which means, if _B_ die within the time limited in the policy, _A_ will have a demand upon _C_ for amount of his insurance.” 2 _Park on Insurance_, 636.