Some of the more important subjects of Public Health, received also early notice, and were very ably investigated by our physicians. The plan of ventilating the holds and lower decks of ships, as proposed by _Sutton_ in 1739, must have fallen into total neglect, through the unaccountable prejudice of the Admiralty, had it not received the powerful support of _Dr. Mead_, by whose advice experiments were publicly made, the success of which was, in the year 1741, acknowledged in an order of his Majesty that all vessels belonging to the Navy should be provided with ventilators. About the same period _Hales_ published his celebrated memoir on the various causes which influence the health of seafaring men, and on the precautions necessary to be taken to prevent those maladies which frequently display themselves in ships and other confined situations; among which modes of safety the most important was a plan of ventilation by means of very ingenious bellows, and which were used with much success in the prisons of Porchester castle, Winchester, and Newgate;[49] and in the several hospitals of London, Bristol, and Northampton. In the year 1803, on the presentation of a memorial to his late Majesty’s ministers, urging the expediency of a Professorship of Medical Jurisprudence, in the University of Edinburgh, a Chair was endowed, and _Dr. Duncan, junior_, appointed to fulfil its duties; which, for many years he has continued to perform, with infinite credit to himself, and with equal advantage to the University and to the public. In the schools of England we continue to suffer from the want of such an establishment; _Dr. Harrison_, a few years since, read some lectures on the subject in the Medical Theatre of Windmill street; and _Dr. Gordon Smith_, has announced his intention of devoting himself to the duties of a public lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence. _Dr. Elliotson_ has also lately published his “Introductory Lecture of a Course upon State Medicine,” which he proposes to deliver in the Anatomical Theatre in Southwark. But it has been demanded, and in a tone, as it would seem, suggested by the feelings of mortified pride and disappointment, how it can have happened that in Britain, a country distinguished above all others for the unceasing jealousy and circumspection with which every thing that even remotely interests the life and comfort of the subject is scrupulously regarded, a science so peculiarly calculated to control the disorders of the social system, to rescue innocence from infamy or death, and to lead to the detection and punishment of crime, should for so long a period have been imperfectly appreciated, and utterly neglected?