If the mother abstain not from the male embrace, and become gravid, the milk becomes, as is well known, poison to the offspring.—The Arabic language has even a single word to express, _quæ lactans consuescit viro_, which they conceive extremely injurious. _Opium_ (_Ar. Aphiûm_). The use of opium, as is well known, is carried to excess in Constantinople. Some persons have so long accustomed themselves to that powerful drug, that a dose of two drams, or more, will have no effect in exhilarating them, or producing that agreeable stupor which they seek. In such cases, they will swallow, in a convenient vehicle, several grains, to the amount, it is said, of ten, of corrosive sublimate of mercury, as a stimulus. This effect of opium, as an antidote to one of the strongest mineral poisons, appears incredible, and would scarcely have been related, but on authority the least questionable. A reflection has in consequence forced itself on me, which I offer as a query. Mithridates, king of Pontus, is said to have so fortified himself with antidotes, that when misfortune obliged him to have recourse to poison to terminate his existence, though repeatedly administered to him, under different forms, it had no effect. Pontus, at that time no less than at present, furnished the best opium. Could Mithridates have used any antidote so powerful? And was not this effect of that drug more likely to be known in its native country than any where else? It may possibly be replied, that mineral poisons were not then in use, and that to the small number of vegetable ones then known, many other antidotes, capable of producing the same effect, might have been found. It is not however enquired, whether single antidotes might not have been found to obviate the influence of distinct poisons, but what could produce so complete a change in the human body, as that no poison should have any effect on it? _Circumcision._ The practice of circumcision may be traced to such remote antiquity, that its origin baffles all research: yet apparently its history has not received all the illustration of which it is capable from a diligent collection of facts. It has been ascribed to the structure of the organs, in certain countries, which it is said impede coition, or facilitate the appearance of morbid symptoms. But what may have been perfectly true of individuals, it may perhaps not be permitted to assume with regard to a whole nation, much less with relation to the inhabitants of an extensive region.