MISS BAILLIE'S, HAMPSTEAD, _Jan. 12, 1822_.

I have been four days resolving to get up half an hour earlier that I
might have time to tell you, my dear Lucy, the history of a cat of
Joanna and Agnes Baillie's.

You may, perhaps, have heard the name of a celebrated Mr. Brodie, who
wrote on Poisons, and whose papers on this subject are to be found in
the _Transactions of the Royal Society_, and reviewed in the _Edinburgh
Review_, in 1811. He brought some of the Woorara poison, with which the
natives poison their arrows and destroy their victims. It was his theory
that this poison destroys by affecting the nervous system only, and that
after a certain time its effects on the nerves would cease as the
effects of intoxicating liquors cease, and that the patient might
recover, if the lungs could be kept in play, if respiration were not
suspended during the trance or partial death in which the patient lies.
To prove the truth of this by experiment he fell to work upon a cat; he
pricked the cat with the point of a lancet dipped in Woorara. It was
some minutes before the animal became convulsed, and then it lay, to all
appearance, dead. Mr. Brodie applied a tube to its mouth, and blew air
into it from time to time; after lying some hours apparently lifeless it
recovered, shook itself and went about its own affairs as usual. This
was tried several times, much to the satisfaction of the philosophical
spectators, but not quite to the satisfaction of poor puss, who grew
very thin and looked so wretched that Dr. Baillie's son, then a boy,
took compassion on this poor subject of experiment, and begged Mr.
Brodie would let him carry off the cat. With or without consent, he did
carry her off, and brought her to his aunts, Joanna and Agnes Baillie.
Then puss's prosperous days began. Agnes made a soft bed for her in her