ZO
Dr. Paine's
ESSAYS
ON
VITALITY
AND
REMEDIAL AGENTS.
18 42.

Converse
cade Aume

ESSA Y S
ON THE
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY
AS CONTRADISTINGUISHED FROM
CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL PHILOSOPHY,
AND ON THE
MODUS OPERANDI
OF
REMEDIAL A GENTS.
BY
MARTYN PAINE, A.M. M. D.
PROFESSOR OF THE INSTITUTES OF MEDICINE AND MATERIA MEDICA IN THE
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW-YORK ;
MEMBER OF THE VEREIN FUR HEILKUNDE IN PREUS-
SEN, OF THE MONTREAL NATURAL
HISTORY SOCIETY, &C.
4 The Lord God formed man ofthe dust of the ground; and BRIOATHID into his nostrils the breath
of life and man BECAME A LIVING soul." GENESIS,
NEW-YORK:
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR,
BY HOPKINS & JENNINGS, NO. 111 FULTON-STEEET.
1842.


THE FOLLOWING ESSAYS ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO
PROF. J. MULLER, M. D.
A. P. W. PHILIP, M.D. F.R.S.
AND
MARSHALL HALL, M.D. F. R. S.
AS A HUMBLE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE AID WHICH THE AUTHOR
HAS DERIVED FROM THEIR LUMINOUS RESEARCHES INTO
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.


PREFACE.
WHEN great principles are invaded by error, it is
not less the duty, than the right, of the conservative
portion of society to come to their protection; nor can
error complain that it is not permitted to move on un-
molested. It must be ever willing to take its chance in
a conflict with truth.
The tendency of the labours now in progress in organic
chemistry to the subversion of physiological science,
and therefore of pathological and therapeutical princi-
ples, and, as another necessary consequence, of rational
practice, induces me to persevere in contributing my
humble efforts to counteract the influence of the iatro-
chemical philosophers. However laudable may be their
motives, and however they may astonish us with reve-
lations in inorganic chemistry and multiply the sources
of human happiness, they are nevertheless employed,
in their interpretation of “facts” 'relative to organic
chemistry, in opposition to the experimental results
which have been forever in undeviating progress in
every individual of the organic kingdoms. The en-
chantments, however, of a fascinating pursuit, and an
imperfect acquaintance with those profound institutions
of nature which are entirely foreign to the laboratory,
and which can only be known through the accumulated
inquiries of ages into both the natural and morbid phe-
nomena of organic beings, must be allowed the weight

vi
PREFACE.
of an apology. But, an attempt to overthrow the ex-
perience of the past, and to obscure what is written in
the most legible characters, and, as it were, in thou-
sands of languages, upon the tablets of organic life, by
a distorted construction of " facts” which are yielded
by test glasses and crucibles, appears to me to be an
enterprise which should alarm physiologists as to its
pernicious consequences.
That we are on the eve of some vast convulsion in
physiology, can no more be doubted by those who
watch the signs of the times, than that the declaration
has been promulgated, ex cathedra, that 6 medicine is
now in its infancy," or that efforts were made to estab-
lish a spurious system upon that assumption.
5 Animal and vegetable physiologists,” says the able Liebig,
s institute experiments without being acquainted with the cir-
cumstances necessary for the continuance of life, — with the
qualities and proper nourishment of the animal and plant on
which they operate, --- or with the nature and chemical consti-
tution of its organs. These experiments are considered by them
as convincing proofs, whilst they are fitted only to awaken
pity.” —(LIEBIG.)
The question then is, whether s animal and vegetable
physiologists” will continue to be satisfied with the
s experiments and the pity” of the chemical physiolo-
gists? How this question will be decided, I can enter-
tain no doubt if the reader will attentively examine the
article on “ Poisons, Contagions, and Miasms," in Lie-
big's Organic Chemistry applied to Agriculture and
Physiology, extending from page 329 to 384 ; - which
is certainly the most stupendous exhibition of perverted
facts, of combinations of conflicting doctrines, and of
the rudest system of pathology and therapeutics, that
can be found in the records of dreamy speculation.
And yet is Liebig profound and rich in chemical philo-
sophy, and in its application to the useful arts.

PREFACE.
vii
I will take this opportunity of making a few explana-
tory remarks relative to a communication from the
Editor of the British and Foreign Medical Review,
which appeared in an April number of the Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal, since they are necessary
to a just understanding of the case.
Dr. Forbes having refused to impart to the public
the name of any individual as the author of the “pla-
giarisms” in his Journal, and having stated that he had
s sent the name of the real author of the plagiarisms
to a mutual friend in New-York, with permission to
mention it to Dr. Paine in confidence,” it seems indis-
pensable that I should say, — that this communication
was not made to me until a considerable time after the
publication of my Reply to Drs. Forbes' and Carpen-
ter's Circular Letters, and that it was then done with the
strictest injunction of secrecy, and with the information
from Dr. Forbes, that the individual had gone to Austra-
lia. The reader should be likewise in possession of
the fact that I have received information from a sure
source in Europe, that Dr. Forbes has stated that Dr.
Carpenter wrote a part of the Review of my Com-
mentaries, and the “plagiarist" the other part! (1)
I would also add, that the author of the Examina-
tion of Reviews has never 6 sought to crush," as assumed
by Dr. Forbes, s with the thunders of his gravis-epistola,
the British and Foreign Medical Review, and all belong-
ing to it ;" but simply to protect his own rights, and to
administer, as far as might be, exact justice to all. And
now, in conclusion of the whole subject, and in con-
sideration of the honour which Dr. Forbes has done me
of republishing in his late communication a brief com-
mendatory notice of his Journal which was granted by
me on application, I will do myself the farther honour of
(1) Did the “ Plagiarist” write his part of the review of my “Commenta-
ries” before or after his migration to Australia?

viii
PREFACE.
saying, that, when Dr. Forbes communicated to me the
name of the foregoing inhabitant of Australia, he also
conveyed an invitation to enrol myself as a Reviewer
in the “ British and Foreign Medical Review;" a privi-
lege of which I intend to avail myself should Dr.
Forbes become an author.(1)
New-York, June 12, 1842.
(1) Perhaps it is admissible to show, that, whilst my labours were undergoing
misrepresentations in London, they were treated with magnanimity in a country
which is prëeminent in medical philosophy, as in all other learning, which is
foreign in its language and political institutions, and where I had no friend
at court, - not even an acquaintance.
The following extract from the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of
June 8th, embraces a statement of the honour to which I refer :-
“In the printed catalogue of the members of the Prussian Medical Society for
June, 1841, ( Verein für Heilkunde in Preussen,) is the name of Martyn Paine, M. D.
of New-York, extensively known in the medico-scientific world, for his indefati-
gable industry in medical literature. This Society embraces the élite of the medical
faculty of Prussia and Germany, there being but one hundred and fifty ordinary
members -- and till the election of Dr. Paine, it had not conferred the honour of a
diploma on a single person in America."

ESSAYS ON VITALITY,
AS CONTRADISTINGUISHED FROM
CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL PHILOSOPHY.
or
"These difficulties, the solution of which gives medicine its highest character as
a science, can be adequately conceived by the medical man alone. Neither those
accustomed to legal evidence only, nor such as have pursued physical science in its
more simple material forms, can rightly apprehend the vast difference made by the
INTRODUCTION of the PRINCIPLE of life, or, yet more, of the states and phenomena of
mind, in connexion with bodily organization. We have here a new world of re-
lations, occult and complex in their nature, to be reasoned upon and resolved; with
a principle of change, moreover, ever operating among them, which makes all con-
clusions liable to a new source of error. It is the want of this right understanding of
medical evidence, which makes the mass of mankind so prone to be deceived by
imposture of every kind; whether it be the idle fashion as to particular remedies;
the worse, because wider deception of some system, professing to have attained, at once,
what the most learned and acute observers have laboured after for ages in vain.”. HOL-
LAND. Medical Notes and Reflections, p. 2.-1840.
“Until it is proved that the FORCES which, in a living body interrupt the play of
the natural chemical affinities, maintain a proper temperature, and preside over the va-
rious actions of organic and animal life, are analogous to those admitted by natural
philosophy, we shall act consistently with the principles of that science, by giving
distinct names to those TWO KINDS of forces, and employing ourselves in calculating
the DIFFERENT LAWS they obey.” — Andral. Pathological Anatomy, vol. i, p. 422.
“Physiology would have made a much greater progress, if all those who studied
it had set aside the notions which are borrowed from the accessory sciences, as they
are termed. But these sciences are not accessory; they are wholly strangers to
physiology, and should be banished from it wholly.” “To say that physiology is
made up of the physics of animals, is to give a very absurd idea of it. As well might
we say that Astronomy is the physiology of the stars.” - BICHAT. General Anato-
my, &c.
“We would be glad to see the science of physiology based upon a more extensive
generalization of the phenomena of vitality than has usually been thought neces-
sary." -- BRITISH AND FOREIGN Med. Rev., vol. iv, p. 285, &c.
"In endeavouring to explain any of those phenomena (of organic beings) which
have hitherto evaded research, it may be anticipated, that if such inquiries be suc-
cessful, they will not lead to the discovery of any new laws, but unfold the same
simplicity of means for performing those operations of the economy which have al-
ready been discovered.” -- WARDROP. On the Nature and Treatment of Diseases of
the Heart, Part I, p. 13.
2

10
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
“ Hippocrates totam suam philosophiam in hoc posuit, quod res congeniæ se mu-
Med. Stat. Brit.
tuo appetant, dissimiles vero a se invicem recedant.” — KEILL.
p. 32.
“ The establishment of just principles, besides being the proper end of observa-
tions and facts, is certainly what confers upon them their highest value." --- Senac.
On Fevers.
"The actions of living beings, whether normal or abnormal, are as amenable to
general laws as those of inert matter; and the discovery of these laws is within
the reach of those who search after them in the right track.” — BRITISH AND Foreign
Med. Rev., vol. vi, p. 110.
“Although throughout nature nothing really exists but individual bodies having
simple individual actions, according to'a law, (edentia actus puros ex lege ;) yet in
every thing, that law, and the tracing, finding out, and explaining it, is the foundation
of science and experiment.” — Bacon, Nov. Organ. l. ii, Aph. 2.
“Too many facts crowd the memory without advantage, any farther than they
lead us to establish principles." -- HUNTER. Lectures on the Principles of Surgery,
P. 8,
“We have had workmen enough to toil in the mine and quarry. They have
raised and roughly fashioned an abundance of materials." - LAWRENCE. Lectures
on Physiology, p. 65.
“I have done my part by mentioning the indications to be considered, and point-
ing out the time and manner of doing it; for the practice of physic consists chiefly
in being able to discover the true curative indications, and not medicines to answer
them; and they who have overlooked this point, have taught empyrics-to imitate
physicians.” — PREFACE to SydenhẠM's Works.
“ Those who are incapable of generalizing seek in books for particular details only.
Every author, therefore, who does not tell them all they are ignorant of will appear
to them unworthy of being read.” -- ZIMMERMANN. Experience in Physic.
"Theory is only common sense applied to calculation.".
LAPLACE.
“We must never forget that it is principles, not phenomena, laws, not insulated in-
dependent facts, which are the objects of inquiry.”—HERSCHELL’s Discourse, g-c.,
p. 13.
“ A single just principle in our science will lead to more truth, in one year, than
whole volumes of uncombined facts will do in a century.". Rush. Medical Inqui-
ries, vol. iv, p. 43.
9.
I PURPOSE, in this paper, stating some original views relative
to the doctrines of life as contradistinguished from those which
respect inorganic nature. These doctrines lie at the foundation
of all medical philosophy, of all practical medicine.
1 shall proceed, in the first place, to carry out the illustration
of an important, and fundamental principle of nature, as briefly
set forth in my “Examination of Reviews." This exposition
occurs at the 33d page of that work, and consists in a deduction

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
11
of the doctrines of the vitalists from the phenomena that attend
the development of the incubated egg
It is also one of my present objects to extend the application
of the foregoing principle, and to consider,
1st. The constitutional nature of the ovum.
2d. To show farther by the philosophy of generation, and by
the nature of the powers which are universally admitted to be
alone concerned in developing the germ or ovum, and in form-
ing the organs of the new being, that the same powers are, also,
alone concerned in carrying on forever afterwards the processes
of life, and, of course, that no new powers, or principles, are
introduced.
3d. To consider the manner in which the germ is impregna-
ted, or its vital properties so stimulated into action, as to result
in the development of the germ, and in unfolding the various
attributes of the new being.
4th. To show that we may find in the physiology of genera-
tion, or the principles through which the ovum is impregnated,
the whole philosophy of organic life, or the principles through
which the actions of life are forever carried on.
5th. To state the manner in which the natural peculiarities
of each parent, whether as it respects the properties of life, or
the physical conformation, are infused into the germ and com-
bined in the full-grown offspring.
6th. To show that hereditary diseases are transmitted in the
same way as those more natural peculiarities which belong to
parents.
7th. To show, also, that the principles which are concerned
in the transmission of hereditary diseases are the same as concur
in the production of ordinary diseases.
8th. To deduce from the philosophy of generation the vital
nature of hereditary diseases; or, in other words, to show that
the morbid impression is established upon the vital properties of
the ovum, and of course, upon those of the new being; and
that the hereditary vitiation does not consist in any transmitted
impurity to the blood or other fluids of the offspring, as is now
supposed by the humoralists, and the fallacy of which I have
endeavoured to establish in my Essay on the “ Humoral På-
thology."
In considering the questions before us, we are but employed
in tracing nature into one of her thousand labyrinths, whose ex-

12
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
ploration only requires us to avoid speculation and take nature
for our guide ; and here it must be our first object to interro-
gate her as to the constitution of the ovum, that we may ascer-
tain by what powers its development is accomplished. At this
elementary step of our being, no philosophical mind can doubt
that all the component parts of organic beings are wholly differ-
ent from the ordinary combinations of chemistry, and, therefore,
that they are effected by powers with which chemistry has no
connexion. Such being granted, analogy does the rest for the
whole organic fabric.
If we go to the elementary constitution of organic beings in
their state of maturity, we shall at all times find in the modes
and proportions in which their elements are united, the same
fundamental proof that they are combined and held in union by
properties and laws peculiar to beings so constituted; and what
is thus at the very foundation of organic compounds, must pre-
side over all subsequent developments and actions.
Let us hear the illustrious Müller upon the elementary con-
stitution of organic beings, who, in inclining to the doctrines
of the chemists in his interpretation of the general results of or-
ganic processes, will be allowed to have been prompted alone by
a love of truth in a statement so adverse to his subsequent con-
clusions, and by convictions that could only have flowed from
the most elaborate inquiry.
“ The peculiarity of organic matter,” says Müller, “depends
probably on the following circumstances, first pointed out by
Berzelius and Fourcroy:
66 1st. In mineral substances the elements are always combined in a binary
manner; thus, two elementary substances unite together, and this binary
compound unites again with another simple substance, or with another binary
compound.” “ In minerals the elementary substances are never observed to
combine three or four together, so as to form a compound in which each ele-
ment is equally united with all the others. This, however, is universally the
case in organic bodies. Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, the same
elements which by binary combinations formed inorganic substances, unite
together, each with all the others, and form the peculiar proximate princi-
ples of organic beings. These compounds are termed ternary, or quaternary,
according to the number of elements composing them.” (MULLER's Elements
of Physiology, vol. 1, p. 2.)
It is true, certain organic chemists having seen that such a
constitution of organic nature would be fatal to the whole chem-
ical philosophy of life, have not only rejected the doctrine by

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
13
the force of analogy as derived from the composition of oxalic
acid, and one or two other compounds which are themselves ob-
tained by direct chemical agencies, and therefore more or less
artificial, but, as we have seen on a former occasion, they have
assumed the prerogative of Almighty Power in the creation, not
only of organic compounds, but of the entire animal; whilst one
of the most eminent gravely entertained a society of philoso-
phers in Edinburgh with the discovery of a process for trans-
muting cyanogen, (compounded of nitrogen and carbon,) into
the simple element, silicium. Müller notices and rejects the as-
sumptions of the chemists relative to the few compounds which
they declare to be organic, and yet composed of only two ele-
ments. Of urea, he very justly remarks, that "it can scarcely
be considered organic matter, being rather an excretion than a
component of the animal body.” I shall only add upon this
subject, that however urea may be obtained, either from the
urine or other compounds, its elaboration, whether spontaneous
or artificial, is not a proof of its previous existence in that par-
ticular condition ; whilst the agencies employed for its produc-
tion necessarily involve important changes in the original com-
pound. This principle is obviously more or less applicable to
all the chemical experiments which are instituted upon organic
compounds.
I shall not advert to the remaining contradistinctions between
organic and inorganic beings, beyond what relates immediately
to the specific inquiry before us.
“ The only character,” says Müller, “ that can be possibly compared in organic
and inorganic bodies, is the mode in which symmetry is realized in each. (MUL-
LER's Physiology, p. 21.) Tiedemann, too, was right in saying that, “ all the
qualities of organic bodies should be looked upon as the effects of the vital
powers. Even those phenomena seen in them, which they exhibit in common
with inorganic bodies, undergo modifications of their specific action, and should
be considered subordinate to the vital powers.”
But, we are now especially interested about the opinions of
philosophers as to the entire dependence of the development of
the ovum upon a vital principle or vital properties; for if this
point be universally conceded as a matter of course, then it will
follow that it is the same principle or properties which are for-
ever afterwards concerned in organic processes, and alone con-
cerned. Tiedemann goes on thus:
" It is the vital power, which in the fecundated germinative liquid, brings the
לל

14
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
molecules of the organic combinations to the solid form, and calls the first lin-
eaments of the vegetable and animal embryo into existence. All the parts and
tissues that are formed in it, according to a definite order of succession, are pro-
ducts of the power of formation, and on this they depend in all that relates to
their first appearance, their development, aggregation, configuration, and ar-
rangement. The phenomena exhibited in the act of formation of an embryo,
are placed far above all the mechanical and chemical acts we observe in bodies
not endowed with life,”. (TIEDEMANN. Comparative Physiology, p. 185.)
6 The creative force,” says Müller, “exists already in the germ, and creates
in įt the essential parts of the future animal. The germ is potentially the whole
animal. During the development of the germ, the essential parts which con-
stitute the actual whole are produced.” “ The entire vital principle of the egg
resides in the germinal disk alone; and since the external influences which act
on the germs of the most different organic beings are the same, we must regard
the simple germinal disk, consisting of granular amorphous matter, as the po-
*tential whole of the future animal, endowed with the essential and specific force
or principle of the future being, and capable of increasing the very small
amount of this specific force and matter which it already possesses, by the as-
similation of new matter.” And again he says, “this force exists before the
harmonizing parts, which are, in fact, formed by it during the development of
the embryo.” 6 The vital force inherent in organic beings itself generates the
essential organs which constitute the whole being.” “ The formative or or-
ganizing principle is a creative power, modifying matter blindly and uncon-
sciously;" yet with such wonderful precision, that Müller also says, that “this
rational creative force is exerted in every animal strictly in accordance with
what the nature of each requires.” “The vital principle,” he says, is in a
quiescent state in the egg before incubation.” (1) (MULLER’s Elements of
Physiology, p. 23.)
Roget, of high authority, maintains that
6. We are not warranted in the assertion that the operations of vital chemis-
try are directed by distinct laws, and are the results of new agencies;” and
hé condemns the opinion as to “a principle of vitality" as “a fiction of the
mind." (Roger's Outlines of Physiology, ch. 4, p. 64.)
But, all this, (as with every enlightened chemical physiolo-
gist,) is contradicted whenever he touches specifically upon any
of the actions or other results of life. There is a perpetual re-
currence of “vital powers," "vital actions," " vitality,” &c., in
99
(1) The applicability of the following important statement to my Essay on the
“ Vital Powers,” and to the subject of." force," " properties,” and “vital principle,"
as investigated in my “Examination of Reviews,” (p. 8-34) is sufficiently obvious.
“Whether the vital principle,” says Müller, “is to be regarded as IMPONDERA-
BLE MATTER, or as a FORCE OR ENERGY, is just as uncertain as the same question is
in reference to several important phenomena in physics. Physiology, in this case,
IS NOT BEHIND the other natural sciences; for the PROPERTIES OF THIS PRINCIPLE in
the functions of the nerves are nearly as well known as those of light, caloric, and
electricity, in physics.” (Muller. Ibid. p. 27.)

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
15
both of the able physiological works of this author. Even in
respect to the composition of animals, “the mode,” he says, " in
which their elements are combined is so complex as to require
a long and elaborate process to accomplish that purpose; and
neither the organs with which animals are furnished, nor the
powers with which those organs are endowed, are adequate to
the conversion of the materials furnished by the inorganic world
into the substances required for the construction of their bodies,
and the maintenance of their powers. The inorganic elements
must have passed through intermediate stages of combination,"
in the vegetable kingdom, &c. And yet the chemical physiolo-
gists assume that animal compounds may be created in the
laboratory!
Let us now hear this able writer on the subject of fætal de
velopment.
“ The utmost solicitude,” he says, “has been shown in every part of living
nature to secure the perpetuity of the race, by the establishment of laws, of
which the operation is certain in all contingent circumstances."
“ A portion of the VITAL POWER of the parent,” he says, “is employed to
give origin and birth to the offspring, and certainly no part of the economy of
animated nature is more calculated to impress us with exalted ideas of the
immensity of the scheme of Providence. Nothing can be more admirable
than the progressive architecture of the frame,” &c. Roget ultimately de-
scribes, in his usual felicitous manner, the development of the ovum, and here
we have nothing from our author but the agency of the vital powers.”
The foundations of the edifice,” he says, “are laid in the homogeneous
jelly by the EFFORTS of the VITAL POWERS."
66 At first all the ENERGIES of
VITALITY are directed to raising the fabric, and to the extension of those
organs which are of greatest immediate utility;". and so on throughout the
chapter ; the whole work of developing and fashioning the fætal organs being
assigned to the Efforts of the Vital Powers,” and to “the Energies of Vi-
tality.” (Roger's Animal and Vegetable Physiology, vol. 1, pp. 42, 45; vol. 2.
p. 424.)
We have thus before us a plain statement of our necessary
premises as they respect the exclusive agency of the “vital
principle," or "organic force," or "creative power," or "vital
properties," or “vital powers," or "vitality," (which-ever term
may be preferred) in carrying out the full development of the
embryo.
But let us hear, also, Dr. Carpenter, who advocates the
chemical doctrines of life, so far as to lay down the following
principle no less than twice within six pages, and in nearly the
same words. --Thus:-

16
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
“ Reason,” he says, “has been already given for the belief that the affini-
ties which hold together the elementary particles of organized structures, are
not different from those concerned in the inorganic world ; and it has been
shown that the tendency to decomposition after death bears a very close rela-
tion with the activity of the changes which take place in the part during
life”! (Carpenter's Principles of General and Comparative Physiology, p. 140;
also p. 146.)
Now the authority of such a writer, and the acknowledged
head of the strictly chemical school in physiology, must be
allowed to be very important when any concession is made to
vitalism. Let us then hear him in the matter of the ovum.
6 Organization and vital properties," he says, “ are simultaneously commu-
nicated to the germ by the structures of its parent.(1) These vital properties
confer upon it the means of itself assimilating, and thereby organizing and
ENDOWING with VITALITY, the materials supplied by the inorganic world.” (')
(CARPENTER’s Principles, &c., p. 138.)
Dr. Prichard is strictly of Dr. Carpenter's school, (see my
"Examination,” &c., p. 37,) and as the writings of the latter
upon the vital principle are but a reiteration of those of the
former, I have hitherto thought it unnecessary to cite the lan-
guage of both, and have preferred Dr. Carpenter's as the latest
exposition of the strictly chemical and physical creed. But,
there is a point of agreement which is worth noticing in its
connexion with the subject now before us, and to which I
formerly referred, in its relation to Dr. Carpenter. Both of
these writers see so much of peculiar design in organic nature,
that they find it impossible to interpret the phenomena of organic
beings upon the chemical and physical principles which they
have so strenuously put forth, and, in the end assign them to
the immediate action of the Deity. But, let us have an ex-
ample to our direct purpose. Thus:-
6 The theory of a vital principle," says Dr. Prichard, “ has been applied in
a different manner, to account for the phenomena displayed at the beginning
of life in animals and vegetables, and to get rid of the mystery which attends
the gradual evolution of organic structure from ova and germs. Here the
vital principle is no longer considered as a chemical agent, but assumes the
character of a plastic or formative power," &c.
(1) And yet Dr. Carpenter says that the vital properties exist in the elements of
matter. “A writer who can so contradict himself [and on fundamental doctrines]
scarcely needs to be exposed by us." -- See Dr. Carpenter's review of my
mentaries” and my " Examination of Reviews,” pp. 12, 37, 86, &c., and my“ Notice
of Reviews,” p. 2.
66 Com-

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
17
Now, then, how does Dr. Prichard " get rid of the mystery”?
In the following way, namely, --
“We may,” he says, “ if we choose to do so, term the cause which governs
the organization and vital existence, a plastic principle, but it is a principle
ENDOWED WITH INTELLIGENCE AND DESIGN [!] It is, in fact, nothing more than
the Energy of the Deity.” « The development of forms, according to their
generic, specific, and individual diversities, not less in the vegetable than in
the animal world, can only be accounted for by ascribing it to the universal
energy and wisdom of the Creator.” (PRICHARD's Review of the Doctrine
of a Vital Principle, pp. 123, 141. - See. also, Paine's Commentaries, vol. 1,
pp. 10, 25; and his Examination of Reviews, pp. 37, 41, 43–44.)
This is a far greater admission than the vitalist can desire, —
since, if the development and growth of the germ depend im-
mediately upon Almighty Power, so must all the analogous pro-
cesses of the living being at all stages of its existence. But,
whilst this doctrine is utterly exclusive of all the assumed
chemical agencies at all periods of life, and overlooks the
analogy between the development of the germ and the subse-
quent processes, there can be no hesitation as to the disposition
which should be made of it, without any reference to its pre-
varicating nature.
It will now be interesting to know the details of this work of
development and growth, which is thus allowed, on all hands,
to be conducted by powers utterly distinct from the chemical
and physical, and in which these have no agency.
“ The development of the separate parts,” says Müller, “out of the simple
mass is observable in the incubated egg. All the parts of the egg, except the
germinal membrane, are destined for the nutrition of the germ. The simple
germinal disk is the potential whole of the future animal, endowed with the
essential and specific force, or principle of the future being, and th's germ
expands to form the germinal membrane, which grows so as to surround the
yolk; and by transformation of this germ, the organs of the future animal are
produced. The rudiments merely of the nervous and vascular systems, and
of the intestinal canal, are first formed ; and from these rudiments the details
of the organization are afterwards more fully developed ; so that the first trace
of the central parts of the nervous system must be regarded neither as brain
nor as spinal marrow, but as still the potential whole of the central parts of the
nervous system. In the same manner the different parts of the heart are seen
to be developed from a uniform tube ; and the first trace of the intestinal tube
is more than the mere intestinal tube; it is the potential whole, ---- the repre-
sentative of the entire digestive apparatus; for, as Baer first discovered, liver,
salivary glands, and pancreas, are, in the farther progress of the vegetative
process, really developed from that which appears to be merely the rudiment
of the intestinal canal. It can be no longer doubted that the germ is not the
3

18
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
miniature of the future being, with all its organs, as Bonnet and Haller be-
lieved, but is merely potentially this being, with the specific vital force of which
it is endowed, and which it becomes actually by development, and by the pro-
duction of the organs essential to the active state of the actual being. For
the germ itself is formed merely of amorphous matter, and a high magnifying
power is not necessary to distinguish the first rudiments of the separate organs,
which, from their first appearance, are distinct and very large, but simple.
So, that the later complicated state of a particular organ can be seen to arise
by transformation from its simple rudiment. These remarks are now no longer
mere opinions, but facts ; and nothing is more distinct than the development
of glands from the intestinal tube, and of the intestinal tube itself from a por-
tion of the germinal membrane.” (MULLER, ibid., p. 23.)
Such, then, is the history of the development of the germ in
birds, and in all the higher animals; and the whole work is
ascribed by physiologists of every denomination exclusively to
principles unknown in the inorganic world, and wholly distinct
from any of a chemical nature. They are called, indiscriminate-
ly, vital properties, vital powers, vital principle, organic force,
creative force, &c., terms, as we have just seen, employed either
by Professor Müller or Drs. Roget or Carpenter, to distinguish the
principle, or properties from every thing that has any known
existence in inorganic substances, or as the source of any inor-
ganic results. But, physiologists of the chemical school stop
here, and ascribe all organic compounds after the being is fully
formed to chemical agencies. It is remarkable, however, that
it has not occurred to these philosophers, that precisely the same
elementary combinations, the same formation into tissues, and
the same secretions take place at all stages of the elementary
development as at all future periods of life, and that the rudi-
mentary development consists in those formations of simple
compounds and their union into tissues; and if the early or ru-
dimentary growth of the being, all its secreted products, all its
elementary combinations, be determined by the vital properties,
so are the same results determined by the same properties or
powers forever afterwards. To call in the agency of chemical
or physical forces, to accomplish precisely the same results at
any future stage of the organic being as are admitted to be per-
formed in the development of the essential parts” of that being
by the vital principle or vital properties alone, is not only as
violation of the plainest rule in philosophy, but of the clearest
facts.
We have thus before us a peculiar order of powers by which

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
19
the organic being is developed, fashioned, and forever exclu-
sively governed. It is these powers, about which physiology,
pathology, and therapeutics, are essentially concerned. We may,
therefore, seek in the composition of organic beings, and in the
laws of their development, for the whole rudimentary princi-
ples of medicine. The vital principle has also the extraordinary
task of laying out, in the ovum, the whole organization of the
future being, - so that its subsequent labour must be compara-
tively simple; and it is then, least of all, that it can require any
help from the forces of the inorganic kingdom, or that it would
permit a violation of the great principle in nature, of avoiding
an unnecessary multiplication of causes.
It may be farther shown, by the incipient development of the
ovum, that the vital powers, or properties, are more concerned
in the growth, nutrition, and all the subsequent physical results,
throughout the whole existence of the being, than is generally
supposed by even the exclusive vitalists. The usual supposi-
tion is that the vessels or instruments of action, which are moved
by the vital powers, perform the work of decomposing the blood
and other parts, and recombining them again in other propor-
tions and forms, according to the particular organization of parts,
and the modification of their vital states. (0) But according to
all physiologists, the ovum, in its germinating part, is a mere
organic fluid, destitute of vessels, and all other physical parts of
the future apparatiis.
" That the form,” says Müller, 5 of the organic matter does not determine
originally the mode of its action is proved indisputably by the fact, that the
matter from which all animal forms are produced is at first almost without
form." “ The germ is a round disk of simple animal matter,” &c.
The first « assimilation of new matter," therefore, must take
place without the agency of vessels, or any of the parts which
are subsequently formed; and, therefore, the same powers which
converted the fluid germ into vessels, nerves, &c., continue to
-
(1) It is affirmed, however, by a very eminent chemical physiologist that,
“The most determined skeptic cannot assert that there is any necessary relation,
or, indeed, any relation whatever between the mechanical arrangements and the
chemical properties to which they administer. There is no reason why the chemical
changes of organization should result from the mechanical arrangements, by which
they are accomplished [!] neither is there the slightest reason why the mechanical ar-
rangements, in the formation of organized beings, should lead to the chemical changes
of which they are the instruments" !-(Dr. Prout. Bridgewater Treatise, ch. 4.)
Such is the proof which chemistry offers.


20
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
make the same conversions out of blood ; and as all this was
originally done without the aid of vessels, so must the same pro-
cess be forever carried on without their direct agency. Nothing
in mathematics can be more certain, and nothing, therefore, is
more incontrovertible. (See the last note.)
By the same rule it may be at once shown that the only in-
genious chemical hypothesis ever invented to interpret organic
results, ---the catalytic, - is purely an assumption; since this
hypothesis is predicated of the blood vessels. But, there being
no vessels in the germ, the first vessels must, of course, be pro-
duced without the supposed chemical influence of vessels, and
by my showing, therefore, as to the subsequent formation of
vessels and other parts, the supposed agency of catalytic forces
is a mere assumption. (See Med. and Phys. Commen., vol 1,
p. 74–76.)
By thus reducing this question, which is apparently surround-
ed with difficulties after the animal acquires its complex struct-
ure, to its simple elements, the obscurities disappear; since
what is true of the development of the germ must be equally
true of the same processes and results in after life.
The question then arises as to what is the particular office of
those vessels where the elementary combinations and decompo-
sitions take place ? Simply this, to convey, and eliminate
through the agencies of the vital properties, those parts from
the blood out of which the vital properties effect the new element-
ary combinations, whether solid or fluid, — to aid in arranging
the new molecules, — or to carry forward those fluid products
which may be destined for other ends.
But have not the nerves an indispensable agency in effecting
the elementary combinations and decompositions ? Certainly
not, for the reasons which I have now stated in relation to the
vessels; and this induction concurs with all other facts, and
overthrows the hypothesis that the nerves are conductors of
galvanism, and, therefore, the supposed agency of this fluid in
the processes of life.
But all the vessels, and all the solid parts of the organism,
have their various specific offices. Here, in every part, reside
the vital properties, which had been fully developed in the
ovum, and here are they modified according to the exact nature
of the organization and the peculiar final causes of “the proper-
ties of the vital principle” in each part. Hence they manifest

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
21
peculiarities in parts that are nearly analogous. The modifica-
tions vary, for instance, in the serous membranes, and more
remarkably in the mucous, as known by the influence of foreign
agents, their phenomena, their products, &c. The vital proper-
ties differ in different parts of one and the same continuous
tissue, as in the mucous membrane of the nose, of the stomach,
and of the intestines. Hence, one of the important objects of
studying the structure of organs, and the nature of their tissues;
for as the vital properties are naturally modified in different
parts, so will their alterations in the same disease be different in
different tissues of one organ, and for the same reason, even in
different parts of one continuous tissue, as in the alimentary
mucous membrane, where inflammation of the nose, of the
stomach, and of the intestines, is distinguished by almost as
striking peculiarities in the vital signs as are the physiological
functions of the different organs.
These natural modifications of the vital properties in different
parts have, at least, three great final causes. The first is what
I have already stated, namely, to separate from the blood, through
the agency of the capillary vessels, that exact part which is to
be decompounded at any given point; the second is, by these
modifications, to enable the properties of the vital principle"
to decompound and recombine the elements according to the
exact nature of the combinations which belong to the part; and
the third, to qualify the properties, through the medium of the
capillary vessels, to shape and unite the new molecules to the
old. It is easy to apply this principle, under its different aspects,
to all other vessels, as the veins, the secretory and excretory
vessels of the glands, and the absorbents.
At the first start of the development of the germ, “the pro-
perties of the vital principle” are not aided by any of the fore-
going physical means, though they come into operation at the
moment they are successively produced. "The properties of
the vital principle," therefore, must exist in that organic fluid, in
a modification, and with a formative energy which they do not
possess in any of the new developments.
There are some branches of physiology of which chemistry
has taken more complete and unresisted possession than of others,
and the entire philosophy of digestion is almost by common
consent consigned to the laboratory. Having, on former occa-
sions, endeavoured to expose this perversion of nature, I will

22
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
here add an illustration of the vital character of digestion by
regarding that phenomenon in connexion with the principles
now before us.
The apparent difficulty with the cheniist, (who lives, of course,
in great practical ignorance of organic nature, and biased by
his pursuits in the inorganic world, or as dead organic matter
may come under the influence of fire and acids,) — the apparent
difficulty, I say, with the chemist has been in conceiving how such
a fluid as the gastric juice should possess life enough to effect
the transformation of all sorts of food into chyme, or how this
remarkable process should be accomplished by any other power
than such as he is accustomed to witness in the remotely analo-
gous results of chemical affinities; and yet he meets the stubborn
fact that, in all animals, whatever the nature and variety of food,
the chyme is the same compound in all; one unvarying homo-
geneous substance throughout. (See Digestion, in Comm. vol.
2, p. 78-122.)
But it is only my present purpose to say, that we have in the
development of the ovum all the necessary elements to inter-
pret the philosophy of vital digestion by the gastric juice. This
is in all fundamental respects analogous to the physiology of the
impregnated fluid ovum, with the specific difference, that the
elementary combinations and the modified properties of the germ
are adapted to the creation of a new being out of itself and the
blood which is transmitted to it by the viviparous parent; whilst
those of the gastric juice are constituted for preparing or “assimi-
lating new matter” for the ultimate growth and repair of that
being. We may notice, therefore, the following points of analogy.
1st. The germ is an organic fluid, and so is the gastric juice.
2d. The germ possesses "a creative force” by which new matter
from without is assimilated. Here the analogy is very remarka-
ble, since the gastric juice in bestowing the first vitalizing act
upon dead matter must also be peculiarly “creative.” In adopt-
ing this expressive term, however, from Müller, I would say
that both that philosopher and myself employ it in a purely phy-
siological sense, as implying a power impressed by the Creator
upon organic beings of perpetuating individuals exactly similar
to such as were originally the direct work of Omnipotence; but
utterly reject the atheistical doctrine of spontaneous generation,
and its kindred one which supposes that animals of superior or-
ganization may produce an inferior order. (See Spontaneous
Generation, in Comm. vol. 2. p. 130, &c.)

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
23
The germ in all animals, so far as known," is a round disk of
simple matter, having no difference of form corresponding to the
difference of animals.” (Müller, p. 26.)
Nature, however, has in contemplation the elaboration, out of
this germ, of various fabrics; but all upon a common plan in
respect to organic life. She has therefore constituted the sensi-
ble conditions of the germ in a manner so nearly alike in all, that
its differences in different species, in its elementary combinations,
and in its sensible form, cannot be detected.
Just so in respect to the gastric juice. It is destined to convert
all kinds of food, in all animals, into one homogeneous substance,
apparently alike in all, because the elementary combinations of
all animals are nearly alike. The gastric juice, therefore, like
the germ, appears to be the same to the chemist in all animals;
as does also the chyme.
And now what says our great organic chemist as to the agency
of a vital principle in the most essential part of digestion ?
“The equilibrium,” he says, " in the chemical attractions of the constituents
of the food is disturbed by the VITAL PRINCIPLE, as we know it may be by many
other causes. But the union of its elements, so as to produce new combinations
and forms, indicates the presence of a peculiar mode of attraction, and the ex-
istence of A POWER distinct from all other powers of nature, namely, A VITAL
PRINCIPLE." (LIEBIG. Organic Chemistry in its applications to Agriculture and
Physiology, p. 357. 1841.)
The process of generation presents a varied and most impres-
sive illustration of the peculiarities of the vital properties, and of
the manner in which they are liable to be impressed and perma-
nently modified in their nature. It results in the production of
organic beings similar to those which exercise the generative
faculty. This faculty is therefore manifested with as many spe-
cific modifications as there are different species of organic beings.
If we allow to the globe one million of distinct species of animals,
the specific modifications of the germinal product will be as nu-
merous, and these are more or less influenced by the semen of
the male. The seminal or productive principle of the male ex-
erts its special influences upon the living properties of the germ,
and directs their operation in such a manner that none but
beings of the same kind with the parents are produced. That
the various modifications which distinguish each species are de-
termined by both parents is fully demonstrable in hybrid animals,
and is sufficiently obvious in the transmission of the peculiari--

24
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
ties of the male, where the individuals are of the same species.
And notwithstanding our supposed million of distinct species of
animals, and the specific variations in all the parts of each spe-
cies, (which varieties in animals and plants may be safely
estimated at fifty millions,) this almost endless variety is made
up by successive depositions of elementary compounds out
of mainly four simple substances, namely, oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen, and carbon, three of which are gaseous, united in modes
unknown to chemistry, and which chemistry cannot detect,
and forever uniting in different modes and proportions accord-
ing to the exact nature of every part. The act of generation
establishes the modifications which are to be continued, without
variation, through the life of the new being; and this new indi-
vidual, becoming in its turn the agent of procreation, perpetu-
ates all the specific modifications which appertain to itself and
to its ancestors. The intermingling of species, which results in
hybrid animals, proceeds upon the same plan. It must therefore
necessarily be, that the vital properties of the ovum are so im-
pressed by the exciting properties of the semen, that those pecu-
liar elementary combinations and aggregations are started which
ultimately make up the hybrid. “These vital properties," says
Dr. Carpenter, “confer upon it the means of itself assimilating,
and thereby organizing, and endowing with vitality, the ma-
terials of the inorganic world,” — leaving it, also, clear to all
minds that the action of the semen must be exerted directly
upon the vital properties of the ovum.
That this important question as to the direct action of the
semen upon the vital properties of the ovum, and its capability
of establishing certain modifications of these properties, and that
the humoral interpretation of transmitted peculiarities is an un-
founded assumption, may be definitively settled, I will also add
6 The well-known fact, that when the Earl of Morton's Arabian mare was
covered by the quagga, not only did the mule so begotten partake of the cha-
racters of the sire, but when the mare was subsequently submitted to an Ara-
bian stallion, by whom she had three foals at different times, the first two con-
tinued to exhibit some of the distinctive peculiarities of the quagga conjoined
with the characters of the Arabian breed.”—(MONTGOMERY, on the Signs and
Symptoms of Pregnancy, p. 17. London, 1837.)
The profound writer whom I have thus quoted, goes on to
state the true philosophy of this phenomenon, in supposing that
the semen may influence several ova and so continue to manifest

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
25
its effect in the offspring of subsequent conceptions when inn-
pregnation has been effected” by males of another species.
The semen, then, is a vital stimulus, and so far on a par with
the ordinary stimuli of life. These may be natural, like air,
heat, food, &c.; or they may be morbific, like malaria, poisons,
&c.; or curative, like medicines. In all the cases, their action
is upon the vital properties; and it is in consequence of these in-
fluences, that the ovum is developed, that life is maintained,
health preserved or impaired, or disease removed. The ova of
oviparous animals show the analogy in respect to stimuli, and
the principles involved, more impressively than those of vivipa-
rous; since by an admirable design, in respect to the former,
the impression of the semen has a limited operation, when the
vital properties of the ovum return to their quiescent state, but
may be again roused into action by the simple stimulus of heat.
(See Comm. vol. 1. p. 21, &c.)
The action of the semen upon the properties of the vital prin-
ciple of the germ is a type of all the influences that are produ-
ced upon the same vital properties during the life of the animal,
and from which all its organic actions, and all their results, arise.
This is the whole essential philosophy of physiology. It is the al-
terations produced in the vital properties which constitutes the
philosophy of disease, and in which, indeed, all disease virtually
consists. It is the art of finding out the remote causes, and the
nature of the alterations they produce, and of adapting to the
altered condition of the properties of life such agents as shall
establish new impressions upon them, and thus enable them to
return to their natural state, which forms the basis of therapeu-
tics in its connexion with pathology.
Let us now see if the beginning of individual existence does
not supply a key to the whole philosophy of disease, as it does to
that of physiology. We have seen that all the actions, and all
the results of life, are merely effects which arise from the opera-
tion of the vital properties through their organic instruments, as
bloodvessels, &c. Those properties must be constantly excited
into action by foreign agents, as by food, blood, &c., or the
properties will become extinct, and of course, the effects will
cease. Now, the actions in disease are nothing more than the
altered actions of health, and the same rule applies to all the
morbid products. It follows, therefore, that the properties of
life, upon which these altered conditions depend, are modified or
4

26
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
altered in a corresponding manner. As a consequence of this,
it also results that the vital properties have been varied from
their natural state by agents or causes capable of producing the
change. These agents make their impressions in the same way
as the natural stimuli of life, only the morbific agents at the same
time affect the nature of the vital properties, and bring them into
a new condition. This new condition constitutes disease.
The type of all this may be found in the impregnated ovum.
The properties which animate the germ before conception are
entirely determined by the vital constitution of the female parent.
But we have seen that the new being may partake of the phys-
ical characters of the male as well as of the female, and it not
unfrequently happens that the characteristics of the male are
predominant. Hence it follows that the semen so far establishes
changes in the original constitution of the vital properties of the
germ.
Since, therefore, all the fætal developments, and all their phys-
ical peculiarities, depend upon the precise modifications and ac-
tions of the vital properties, and since these properties in the
unimpregnated ovum are entirely determined by the female pa-
rent, their nature after impregnation must be more or less affected,
and assimilated to the peculiar nature of the male parent in all
the cases where the offspring manifest any of the male charac-
teristics. This is entirely analogous, in principle, to the modifi-
cations which are produced in the properties of life by morbific
causes, but with this difference in contingencies. In the case of
the impregnated ovum, the modifications are permanently estab-
lished, and can never be altered, so far as the vital properties, in
either parent, upon which the modifications depend, are funda-
mental in their nature. In the case of the morbific agent, or the
cause of disease, the vital properties are diverted from the
healthy state, and from such modified conditions they commonly
possess the ability of escape, and of returning again to their
natural standard. In the case of the impregnated ovum, a modi-
fying agent operates, whose properties are intended to confer on
the new being a stable condition, however they may modify the
exact constitution of the impregnated germ. This vital stimu-
lus, the semen, therefore, in virtue of its specific properties
bestows upon the corresponding vital properties of the ovum the
peculiarities which belong to itself; and these being natural,
vital, and determinate, the transmitted peculiarities should be

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
27
equally so. In the case of disease, however, the morbific agents
haye none of the properties of life which are natural to the
fecundating semen, and the modifications, therefore, which they
may determine may be different, even if we suppose them to act,
as in the case of the germ, upon the whole constitution. What-
ever modifications, therefore, may arise from their action, they
must consist of deviations from the standard of health. But it
does not necessarily follow that certain artificial modifications
may not be as permanent as the natural ones; and, it is from ob-
servation alone, that we learn that they are so.
In the case, however, of the formation of new “temperaments”
by change of climate, and the more remarkable alterations which
are produced in animals by domestication, the results are brought
about by the new and habitual influences to which the proper-
ties of life are exposed; and, in all these cases a radical and
permanent modification is established, closely approximating the
modifications which are bestowed upon the germ by the fecun-
dating semen. Now, it is also true, that what is denominated
predisposition to disease is entirely analogous, in principle, to
the permanent temperaments of which I have just spoken. Both
are results of physical agents, modifying the properties of life;
and this chain of analysis conducts us to those predispositions to
disease which are impressed upon the germ by the fecundating
semen, and by which we show that the philosophy of the opera-
tion of morbific causes is variously, and even exactly exhibited
in the impregnation of the germ.
Take the scrofulous subject as supplying an example of hered-
itary predisposition to disease. If it exist in the female, her ova
will partake of this peculiar modification of the vital properties,
and it is in this way that her progeny inherits the scrofulous
diathesis. Here, then, we see illustrated in the very ovum, even
before impregnation, the whole principle which concerns artifi-
cial temperaments, and those influences of morbific agents which
establish predispositions to disease in the full grown subject.
It frequently happens, also, that this natural diathesis is so great,
that it results in actual disease before the birth of the offspring,
as manifested by tuberculous affections in the lungs of still
born infants.
But to make the philosophy of this subject more obvious, let
us consider the germ when it derives its scrofulous disposition
from the male parent. Before impregnation, its vital condition

28
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
is perfectly natural. The semen of the male parent establishes
upon it the modification which constitutes the predisposition to
scrofula, just as malaria determine those modifications which
result in fever, &c.
The subject may be pursued under a variety of aspects, and
with various illustrations, whether physiologically, or pathologi-
cally. The same principle is concerned throughout, whether in
respect to the physiological conditions impressed upon the ovum
by the seminal fluid, or as these conditions are modified in hered-
itary scrofula, gout, &c., or whether it concern the tempera-
ments and other permanent changes that are induced by climate,
domestication, &c., or, as malaria may establish their peculiar
modifications of the properties of life. Nor can such conclusions
be unexpected to those who duly consider the simplicity of na-
ture in her elementary principles and laws.
Could the doctrine entertained by Walker, Elliotson, and
others, that the imagination of the parents influences the physical
organization of the offspring, the philosophy which I have set
forth, though not rendered more clear, would be yet fortified.
But, that is at best but speculation. I could, however, turn to
the mysterious production of the soul. This remarkable prin-
ciple is doubtless developed at the very outset of fætal life,
from the circumstance of its often combining the intellectual pe-
culiarities of both parents, or again of manifesting chiefly those
of the male. But here we have no other fact to guide us, and
all beyond has been involved in an impenetrable mystery by.
the great Creator. Here it is a pride and a help of philosophy
to rest on faith alone. (See Commentaries, vol. 1, p. 82—106.)
1

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
29
CONCLUSIONS DERIVED FROM THE PRESENCE OF NITROGEN
IN ORGANIC COMPOUNDS.
66
“ It is found that no body destitute of nitrogen possesses, when pure, the pro-
perty of decomposing spontaneously whilst in contact with water."
Every azotized constituent of the animal or vegetable organism enters spon-
taneously into putrefaction when exposed to moisture and a high temperature.”
6 The VITAL PRINCIPLE opposes to the continual action of the atmosphere, mois-
ture, and temperature, upon the organism, a resistance which is, in a certain de-
gree, invincible.” LIEBIG. Organic Chemistry in its Applications to Agriculture
and Physiology, pp. 257, 357. London : 1841.
I shall now present one or two objections to the chemical
philosophy of organic life, as they are founded upon facts in
chemistry, and as I am desirous of bringing them to the support
of what I have advanced, at other times, upon this topic. The
views, I believe to be original with myself.
It is abundantly evident that living organic beings are endowed
with properties which protect their elementary composition
against all those decomposing agencies which are perpetually
separating the elements of all mineral compounds. This shows
that the properties, by which the elements of living beings are
united, are utterly different from such as combine the elements
of inorganic compounds. Nevertheless, the living organization
is undergoing a systematic change, a perpetual decomposition,
surpassing any mutations that are in progress in the surrounding
world. These decompositions are, also, of a peculiar nature,
governed by established laws, various in different parts of the
same individual, yet forever the same in any given part. I shall
not stop to show how the old are replaced by new materials, and
how the processes go on pari passu, and in opposition to all the
philosophy which chemistry teaches, but only say that the de-
compositions must be effected by properties as peculiar to the
living compound as are the results; and that these results con-
spire with the peculiar modes in which the elements are com-
bined in proving the existence of specific properties, which are
the common cause of all the harmonious phenomena of living
beings.
When, however, the organic being dies, a new order of decom-
position begins, eminently of a chemical nature, and in forcible

30
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
contrast with that which concerns the vital process of renewal.
Organic beings, indeed, contain within themselves a special
principle of dissolution. It is incorporated in the very nature
of the elements, and in the modes in which they are combined ;
being combined in such modes as facilitate their transformations
and disunion after the properties of life have lost their sway.
The moment these cease, chemical decomposition begins,-con-
fusedly, violently; and such are the nature and combinations of
the elements, that their disruption would go on with no other
contribution from surrounding agents than water alone.
This brings me to my principal object in resuming this inquiry,
which is to show that besides the modes in which the elements
of organic beings are combined, one of the elements contributes
vastly to the chemical decompositions which organic bodies un-
dergo as soon as the vital principle becomes extinct.
This element is that anomaly in the inorganic kingdom,
NITROGEN GAS, which abounds especially in animals. Liebig
says of it, that,
15. There is some peculiarity in the nature of nitrogen, which gives its com-
pounds the power to decompose spontaneously with so much facility,” — as in
the processes of fermentation and putrefaction. Now, nitrogen is known to be
the most indifferent of all the elements. It evinces no particular attraction to
any one of the simple bodies, and this character it preserves in all its combi-
nations; a character which explains the cause of its easy separation from the
matter with which it is united.” And again, “ when those substances are ex-
amined which are most prone to fermentation and putrefaction, it is found that
they are all, without exception, bodies which contain nitrogen.” LIEBIG's Or-
ganic Chemistry applied, &c., p. 241.
In the inorganic kingdom, nitrogen is mostly confined to the
atmosphere, where it probably exists in a state of simple inter-
mixture with oxygen. “All bodies which have an affinity for
oxygen abstract it from the atmosphere with as much facility as
if the nitrogen were absent altogether;" and we have striking
examples of the disposition of nitrogen to separate from its com-
pounds, " in the easy transposition of atoms in the fulminating
silvers, in fulminating mercury, and in all fulminating sub-
stances," whose ready explosion is owing to the presence of
nitrogen.
akoma
Now the foregoing characters belong to nitrogen only as it
exists in inorganic or in dead organic compounds. In living
beings, where it abounds, it adheres to its associated elements


PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
31
with a tenacity which no chemical agent can impair till it des-
troys the life of the part; or in other words, till it destroys those
vital properties by which the elements were truly united. It is
then, however, that the forces of chemistry take possession, and
the elements of the part may explode, I had almost said, with
the facility of the fulminating compounds.
« There is,” says Liebig, “in the nature and constitution of the (inanimate)
compounds of nitrogen, a kind of tension of their component parts, and, a
strong disposition to yield to transformations, which effect spontaneously the
transposition of their atoms on the instant that water or its elements are
brought in contact with them.” In speaking of the fulminating compounds,
he remarks that, “ all other substances containing nitrogen acquire the same
power of decomposition, when the elements of water (oxygen and hydrogen)
are brought into play.”- LIEBIG, ibid. p.
244.
But, although dead animal compounds readily pass into sponta-
neous decomposition under slight degrees of moisture, yet com-
posed as they are, in part, of the elements of water, and very
largely impregnated with aqueous substances in their living
state, neither this water nor any other agent, can disturb the
exact combinations.
But when the organic being dies, chemical agencies have their
play, and it is then that
The result of the known transformations of substances containing nitrogen
proves,” according to Liebig, “ that the water does not merely act as a medium
in which motion is permitted to the elements in the act of transposition, but
that its influence depends on chemical affinity. When the decomposition of
such substances is effected with the assistance of water, the nitrogen is inva-
riably liberated in the form of ammonia.” LIEBIG.
Whilst, therefore, such is the disobedience of nitrogen to all
the ordinary restraints of chemical laws, as it exists in mineral
compounds or in organic bodies divested of life, that it either
struggles to escape, or is readily liberated by slight influences;
yet, on the other hand, although entering largely and univer-
sally into organic beings, it is intimately combined in all with
other elementary principles, and is restrained in its place by
some power which even puts at defiance all those chemical in-
fluences that aid its escape from its elaborate combinations after
they have lost the living principle. Its escape breaks up, of
course, the organic compound. The hydrogen, the oxygen, and
all the other elements then start from their places, and ultimately
enter into those binary combinations which are peculiar to the
66

32
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
inorganic kingdom. The nitrogen seizes upon the hydrogen,
and forms ammonia, which becomes an important source of
aliment to the vegetable kingdom. (!) de
But besides this disposition of nitrogen to tear asunder the
elements with which it may be combined, the complexity of
these elements in organic beings contributes to the disorganizing
results after death, and is another principal cause of sponta-
neous fermentation and putrefaction.
From the foregoing facts, especially from the universality and
fixedness of nitrogen in organic beings, I arrive at the conclu-
sion that the elements of their compounds are united by forces
as peculiar as the facts which relate to these compounds, and
that the forces of chemistry have no agency in combining the
elements, or in effecting changes of their combinations during
life.
It is certainly remarkable, that nitrogen, which aids so power-
fully in breaking up the elementary combinations of organic
beings as soon as dead, should be made such an universal and
so large an element in the organic kingdoms; and this the
more so, when it is considered that nitrogen is utterly excluded
from all combinations in the inorganic world. Were it con-
sistent with proper brevity, I would inquire why this is so ;
but, being so, it evidently forms a strong characteristic dis-
tinction between the organic and inorganic kingdoms. We may
readily suppose that among its final causes is the promotion of
vital decompositions and recombinations, and ultimately of a
complete resolution of the elements. And in respect to the in-
organic world, had nitrogen been incorporated in its com-
pounds, there would have been no stability among them. They
would have been perpetually undergoing decomposition, until
finally the whole of the nitrogen would fly off by itself, and
nothing of the original compound would remain, and it could
never be recombined.
Intimately, and largely combined, therefore, as nitrogen is
with other elements in the organic kingdom, it irresistibly fol-
(1) Liebig supposes that vegetables derive nearly all their nitrogen from the am-
monia that arises from the decomposition of animal substances. Whence, then, did
they obtain their nitrogen after their first creation, and before a supply could have
been yielded by the animal kingdom? The nitrogen of the atmosphere was and is
appropriated by plants; and this fact evinces their organic action upon substances
in their elementary state. --- See Liebig's Organic Chemistry applied to Agriculture
and Physiology, p. 70, $c., London, 1841.

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
33
lows that it is there united by forces essentially different from
the chemical ; and, when the being dies, we obtain another and
opposite demonstration of the fact in its immediate obedience to
chemical laws.
However the chemist may usurp the high calling of the
physiologist, we shall find him perpetually baffled in his enter-
prise, and calling upon nature for help. In respect to the prin-
ciple which maintains in union the elements of dead organic
matter, Liebig says,
• The atoms exist only by the vis inertie of their elements. They seem
merely to retain passively the position and condition in which they had been
placed.” (LIEBIG, ibid. p. 236.)
Of course, then, he must necessarily allow that some other
influences than the chemical originally place the elements in
a position and condition which they passively maintain” after
those influences shall have ceased. In my " Examination of
Reviews,” (p. 16,) I have shown extensively, that Liebig refers
not only the actions of organic beings, but their elementary
combinations, to what he denominates a "vital principle,” and
which he considers utterly distinct from the chemical forces.
It presides, in his opinion, over the whole organic economy;
and he finally adds, that the
“VITAL PRINCIPLE opposes to the continual action of the atmosphere, mois-
ture, and temperature, upon the organism, a resistance which is in a certain
degree invincible.” (LIEBIG.)
I have also quoted this principal organic chemist, in the same
work, (p. 63,) on the side of vitalism, as it respects digestion ;
and I will add here one quotation more to show how far hypo-
thetical views surrender to the ordeal of nature, when brought
to that great test of all philosophy.
“ The equilibrium,” says Liebig, " in the chemical attractions of the con-
stituents of food is disturbed by the VITAL PRINCIPLE, as we know it may be
by many other causes. But the union of the elements, so as to produce NEW
COMBINATIONS and forms, indicates the presence of a PECULIAR MODE OF AT-
TRACTION AND THE EXISTENCE OF A POWER DISTINCT FROM ALL OTHER POWERS
OF NATURE, namely, the VITAL PRINCIPLE.” “If the food possessed life, not
merely the chemical forces, but this vitality would offer resistance to the vital
force of the organism it nourished.” “ The individual organs, such as the
stomach, cause all the organic substances conveyed to them which are capa-
ble of transformation to assume new forms. The stomach compels the elements
of these substances to unite into a compound fitted for the formation of blood.
But the blood possesses no power of causing transformations. On the con-
5

34
PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
be
trary, its principal character consists in its readily suffering transformations ;
and no other matter can be compared in this respect with it.” (LIEBIG, Op.cit.
pp. 356, 357, 346. — See, also, Article on Digestion, in Med. and Phys. Comm.,
vol. 2, p. 79; and my Examination of Reviews, p. 62.)
The “vital principle,” Liebig, of course, supposes to reside
in the gastric juice, as well as in all parts of the organized
being, and that digestion itself is performed by it. It is, how-
ever, the language of a chemical philosopher of life, who has
embarked his fortunes upon a conflict with that very philosophy
which he now and then concedes is fundamental in nature.
Vitalism becomes established in all its aspects, even in what
has been denominated “transcendental vitalism,” when it may
shown that the elements of organic beings are "united by a pe-
culiar mode of attraction, resulting from the existence of a power
distinct from all other powers of nature, namely, a vital princi-
ple,” since the powers and laws which regulate the composition
must be at the foundation of all the subsequent results. After
having considered extensively, and on various occasions, the
proof of the peculiar vital constitution of organic nature, and
of its total abstraction from the forces and laws of inorganic
matter, I have brought to the aid of my conclusions the power-
ful concessions of the most eminent men with whom I have had
the honour to hold this discussion. It is manifest that such
authorities must weigh with nearly the force of demonstration,
since their concessions can only flow from convictions that have
been obtained in the school of nature. Amongst the most illus-
trious of the adverse school of philosophers is Liebig, and stand-
ing intermediate is the profound and erudite Müller, who, I
cannot doubt, will yet be shoulder to shoulder with his eminent
cotemporary, Tiedemann. And having thus referred again to
this great philosopher, I will not lose the opportunity of obtaining
from him an important contribution to the doctrines of vitalism
as they relate to the very composition of organic beings, and in
which he institutes a broad contrast between the affinities which
unite the elements of organic and inorganic substances. Thus:
“ Chemical substances,” says Müller, “are regulated by the intrinsic proper-
ties and the elective affinity of the substances uniting to form them. In
organic bodies, on the contrary, the power which induces, and maintains, the
combination of their elements, does not consist in the intrinsic properties of
those elements, but in something else, which not only counteracts those affinities,
but effects combinations in direct opposition to them, and conformably to the
laws of its own operation.” (MÜLLER. Elements of Physiology, p. 4.)

PHILOSOPHY OF VITALITY.
35
Now this something else" is what we have seen Müller de-
nominates, in the germ, the “creative force," the vital prin-
ciple," &c.
I shall conclude this article by a quotation from Tiedemann,
which should be kept in view in all chemical analyses of organic
substances, and in considering all their spontaneous changes
after death; namely, -
· Even when the life of organic bodies is extinct, we should consider the
qualities which they possess from the time of death to the complete resolution
of organization, as results of the vital powers which have been active in them.”
(TIEDEMANN's Physiology, p, 29.)
N. B. Since "every azotized constituent of the animal and ve-
getable organism enters spontaneously into putrefaction after
death,” — and considering the other facts as to the intractable
nature of nitrogen in the hands of the chemist, by what special
art, when he creates organic compounds, does he "compel” ni-
trogen (see statement as to gastric juice, p. 33) to undergo a
change of its natural characteristic, “ by which,” according to
Liebig, “it evinces no particular attraction to any one of the sim-
ple bodies,” but an absolute repulsion ? Will the chemist answer?
Dr. Carpenter says that we cannot yet succeed in producing
artificially any organic compound, even of the simplest kind, by
directly combining its elements, because we cannot bring them
together in their requisite states and proportions;" and he ob-
serves that “ Dr. Prout justly remarks, that the agency of vital-
ity combines them in modes which we cannot imitate.” (Carp.
Princip. p. 146.)
I say nothing of the pretended creation of animals in the la-
boratory; but refer merely to the assumption, as set forth by
Liebig, that, “by chemical agency we can produce the consti-
tuents of muscular fibre, skin, and hair”! (LIEBIG, ibid. p.
354. See, also, particularly my Examination of Reviews, p.
40.)
Let us, therefore, weigh well the “facts” which may be con-
tributed by organic chemistry.

ON THE MODUS OPERANDI
OF
REMEDIAL AGENTS.
"The vitaL FORCE appears to be affected primarily by a great many poisons, by
the vegetable or animal emanations, known by the name of miasmata, and by va-
rious modifications of the external agents which are incessantly acting upon us, as
want of due exposure to the sun, too damp an atmosphere, and an unwholesome
diet.” — ANDRAL. Pathological Anatomy, vol. i, p. 423.
"It seems to me that the explanation which represents Nature always pursuing a
uniform course in her operations, drawing the same results from the same principles,
has a greater degree of probability than that which shows her separating, as it were,
this phenomenon from all the others, in the way which she produces it.” — BICHAT,
Gen. Anat. &c., vol. ii, p. 54.
It is the object of this Essay to inquire into the modus ope-
randi of remedial agents.
In the first place I hold, in comformity with the proof which
I have set forth in the Medical and Physiological Commenta-
ries, that the vital principle is a real substantive agent, of which
the vital properties, (irritability, mobility, &c.,) are elements,
superadded to organic beings after the creation of their struc-
ture; and that the nervous power was especially superadded to
man and animals, as were also the soul and principle of instinct.
In what way the nervous power, the soul, and the principle of
instinct, are related to the vital principle, of which the organic
properties are the elements, (or as Müller has it, “properties of
the vital principle,") we know not; but as an intimate relation
does exist, it is not unbecoming human reason to attempt some
knowledge of its connexion. (See Med. and Phys. Com. vol. 1.,
p. 82–93.) I also now assume, what I have endeavoured to
prove in the same work, as well as in the foregoing essays, that
all organic actions are carried on by the vital properties through
the medium of their instruments of action, — that all vital stim-
uli, whether natural, morbific, or remedial, operate directly upon
those properties, (or, if it be preferred, the agent makes its im-

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
37
pressions upon the instruments of action through the medium of
the vital properties,) that all disease consists, essentially, in a
modification of those properties and a consequent change of
function, and, finally, in the language of Bichat,
“It is undeniable that all remedies have for their object the restoration of
the vital forces to the natural type, from which they have been driven by dis-
ease. Since the morbid phenomena may be considered as different alterations
of these forces, (1) the action of remedies should also be viewed as the means
by which these alterations are to be brought back to their natural type."
BICHAT. General Anatomy applied to Physiology and Medicine, vol. i, p. 19.
I also say, with that illustrious philosopher, that if you
* Examine all the physiological and all the pathological phenomena, you will
see that there is no one which cannot be ultimately referred to some one of
the vital properties of which I have just spoken." BICHAT, ibid., p. 17.
In which sentiments Andral concurs :
" In every disease,” he says, “not immediately produced by external violence,
the symptoms that occur depend either on a lesion of the (vital) forces (1) that
animate every living part, or, on a lesion of organization. The former is pri-
mary and constant; the latter is secondary, variable in its nature, and incon-
stant in its existence. ANDRAL. Patholog. Anat. vol. i, p. 422.
I farther believe, that I have shown sufficiently, in the Medi-
cal and Physiological Commentaries, what I have affirmed in
my Materia Medica, namely, that
“ The partial absorption of certain remedies is only a contin-
gent result, and has little or no agency in the physiological
phenomena. Their reputed absorption is greatly overrated, often
only imaginary, and sometimes misrepresented. Such as have
no natural relation to the vital properties modify the natural con-
dition of the absorbing vessels before they can enter the circu-
lation.”
Whatever is true of remedial agents, in this respect, is equally
so of morbific, as I have also specifically set forth; whilst
the whole philosophy of their operation rests upon physiological
principles. The effects of physical causes are exactly on a par
with those of a moral nature; and the cathartic which purges,
the emetic which vomits, the narcotic which induces sleep, or
each, and all, when they destroy, produce their effects upon
exactly the same principles as the warmth which instantly
(1) See a remarkable misrepresentation as to the word FORCE, by Dr. Carpenter,
in my “Examination of Reviews,” p. 7, &c. Also, preceding pp. 14, 36.

38
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
rouses all the processes of life when applied to the surface in
certain morbid conditions, or as offensive spectacles and odours
lead to instant vomiting and purging, or to syncope, or to a
paroxysm of fever; or, again, as an hour's change from one part
of the town to another suspends pertussis, or as one passion
cures the most obstinate maladies, or as another is instantly
fatal.
The fundamental philosophy of disease is perfectly simple, as
is also that which concerns its cure. Disease is essentially
nothing more than a deviation of the properties of life from
their natural standard, and a consequent corresponding change
of functions over which the affected properties preside. The
artificial cure consists in a restoration of those properties and
functions by making upon the former certain impressions which
enables them to obey their natural tendency to a state of health;
for it should be observed that no remedies are capable of trans-
muting diseased into healthy conditions. That is the work of
nature. Most of our medicines may, also, operate as morbific
agents, and even such remedies as are not directly of this nature,
exert their influences upon the same principle. The former
operate, by establishing, in a direct manner, certain morbid alter-
ations in the already diseased properties and actions of life,
which are more conducive to the natural tendency that exists
in the vital properties to return from morbid to their natural
states. The latter also exert effects which are analogous, since
these, in like manner, do but lead to changes in the diseased
conditions which enable them to take on the recuperative
process.
The vis medicatrix nature, therefore, consists in an inherent
tendency in the properties of life to maintain their state of in-
tegrity, or to return from those altered conditions which consti-
tute disease to their natural state, or a state of health. When,
therefore, disease subsides under the influence of remedial agents,
it is only in consequence of that great law, which is brought
into sensible operation by the production of morbid states which
are favourable to its development; but if disease terminate
fatally, it is owing either to morbid alterations which transcend
the recuperative tendency, or to physical obstacles which have
resulted from the altered vital conditions. If disease subside
spontaneously, it arises from the operation alone of that natural
principle which has been established for the preservation of

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
39
health, and the perpetuation of organic beings. Of this we have
remarkable and striking examples in smallpox, measles, &c.
But, for wise purposes, a principle of mutability has been also
established in the properties of life, by which they may be vari-
ously altered from their natural state by physical and moral
causes; but it is this very principle which enables them to re-
ceive salutary impressions from remedial agents, (just as they
do from morbific,) and to return to their natural condition.
The changes to which the properties of life are liable, are
almost of endless variety; depending upon the nature of the
morbific causes, habits, natural and artificial temperaments, age,
sex, &c.; and whenever they become diseased, they pass through
many progressive changes till they reach the acme of their mor-
bid states. And so, on the other hand, when remedial agents
begin their operation, a series of other changes set in, and con-
tinue in regular progress until they end in health. The patho-
logical conditions, therefore, of any given disease are constantly
varying, and may require frequent variations of treatment;
though it commonly happens that the shades of difference are
too slight for any essential change of remedies till the patholo-
gical changes shall have passed through a considerable series.
This leads me to consider, next, the application of a foregoing
principle to the treatment of disease. It being only necessary
to establish a peculiar morbid change in diseased conditions
that shall favour the operation of the natural tendency of the
properties and actions of life to return to their healthy state, a
very few remedial agents may be all that are requisite to the
attainment of that result; whilst experience shows that our ma-
teria medica is encumbered with superfluities. Take a large
variety of pathological conditions, such, for example, as are pre-
sented by inflammation, it is not necessary that a certain uniform
change should be established by the remedies, but only such as
shall favour the recuperative tendency. Bloodletting brings
about one kind of change, cathartics another, antimony another,
mercury another, and so on; whilst each of these agents may
prove perfectly curative in many cases of all the modifications
to which inflammation is liable from absolute morbific agents.
And yet it is obvious that each one produces changes peculiar
to itself
, whilst the changes induced by either will be as various
as the natural modifications of disease. And just so it is in re-
spect to the great variety of remedies which will tend to the cure

40
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
of intermittent fever. This disease will sometimes yield to
almost every thing in the materia medica, and may be suddenly
broken up by an emotion of the mind. But every agent exerts
changes in the morbid properties of life peculiar to itself, but
such changes as enable the properties and actions of life to pass,
afterwards, through a succession of spontaneous changes under
the restorative principle, till they end in health. There is no
other philosophy that will account for any of these phenomena,
whilst they all concur in demonstrating its foundation in nature,
Hence, also, I may add, what I endeavoured to expound in the
« Commentaries,” the occasional salutary effects of alcoholic
stimulants in the treatment of fever, and acute inflammations,
and through which, in part, I attempted to abolish the distinc-
tion between active and passive inflammation. (Com. vol. 2, p.
524-546.) In these examples, the alcoholic stimulants do but
introduce morbid conditions that are favourable to the recupe-
rative process, and are, therefore, so far on a par with loss of
blood. Nevertheless, a distinction is very properly made into
curative and morbific agents, however the former may be pro-
ductive of disease, as they commonly are, in their medicinal
doses when they do not correspond with the existing pathological
conditions. Their absolute mode of action, however, is the same
in all the cases; and although, in a general sense, remedial
agents exert their salutary effects by inducing new patholo-
gical states, and are generally liable to produce disease when
exhibited in health, these morbid states, when not excessive, are
of a nature to allow the full exercise of the recuperative tendency.
On the contrary, however, there is a class of agents which are
more profoundly morbific, and whose results transcend the na-
tural recuperative process. It is for the removal of these conse-
quences that we employ the other class of morbific agents. Or,
there are yet other means, like exercise, air, &c., whose influ-
ences are of the mildest alterative nature, and appear to cooperate
in a direct manner with a tendency to restoration which had
already begun; or, as in whooping cough, where the restorative
process is often easily introduced. Our remedies, therefore, are
curative by substituting new pathological conditions, and nature
does the rest; and it is only with a view to a right interpretation
of their modus medendi that I have any disposition to depart
from established phraseology, or to confound the operation of
remedies with that of the ordinary causes of disease.

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
41
I now proceed to a statement of the manner in which remedial
agents produce their effects upon parts remotely situated from
the direct seat of their application; and this, as I have formerly
said, is through remote, continuous, or contiguous sympathy;
the agents exerting their direct impression upon the parts with
which they are in contact. Remote, and, probably also contig-
uous sympathy, are conducted by the nervous power through
the medium of the cerebro-spinal and ganglionic systems; whilst,
as I have endeavoured to show in the “Commentaries," contin-
uous sympathy is more or less independent of the nerves. When,
however, these enter into the structure of parts, as in animals,
they have a certain contingent participation. But their primary
connexions may be wholly severed, and disease may be yet pro-
pagated continuously along the part to which they appertained ;
aš we observe also in plants. It appears, therefore, that in these
examples, the morbid condition is extended, in a continuous
manner, from the organic properties of one point to the next in
apposition. It is now my purpose to enlarge upon the philoso-
phy of remote and contiguous sympathy, as was represented in
the “Commentaries," and in my “ Introductory Discourse."
I shall not go into any farther proof relative to the existence
of the vital properties as contradistinguished from the properties
of inorganic beings, nor of the nervous power. These I assume
to be already established, and that they are distinct from each
other; and I farther assume that the nervous power is capable
of acting as a vital stimulus to the organic properties, is liable to
be variously developed by morbific and remedial agents, and to be
so modified in its nature according to the virtues of such agents,
that it produces, more or less, in diseased parts, remote from the
direct seat of the morbific or remedial action, the changes which
the agents themselves would exert were they applied directly to
the remote organs. (') The type of all this exists in various pro-
cesses which are naturally going forward in the animal body,
and as profoundly illustrated by the experiments of Sir Charles
Bell, Marshall Hall, Wilson Philip, Prochaska, Whytt, Reid,
Valentin, and, lastly, as set forth in a masterly manner by Pro-
fessor Müller in his Elements of Physiology. The nervous
power is superadded to animals, for the purposes of voluntary
motion, as a regulator of their complex organization, and as an
(1) The whole of this doctrine is briefly laid down in the Medical and Physiological
Commentaries, vol. 1. p. 570-572,
6

42
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
auxiliary to the organic properties; operating as a stimulus to
those properties, by which all actions are virtually performed.
The brain and spinal cord are the great centre of the nervous
power, (in the entire state of the animal,) and the nerves of
animal and organic life, especially the latter, are the media by
which the impressions of morbific or remedial agents are trans-
mitted to the great centre, and through which the nervous power
is radiated abroad upon all parts of the organism. The nervous
power may be, also, equally determined with a morbific or cura-
tive effect upon the organic properties and actions of the great
nervous centre; or upon any of its radiating parts. The phi-
losophy is also exactly the same when one diseased part gives
rise to disease in parts that are remote ; and when disease in re-
mote parts, that has been maintained by affections of other parts,
subsides in consequence of the restoration of the latter, it is
owing to the removal of a pernicious modification of the nervous
power that had been constantly propagated by means of the
latter upon the former.
Let us now take a simple physiological example to illustrate
our doctrine; and they who have the disposition to pursue the
inquiry should study well the laws of sympathy as laid down
by Professor Müller, and the elaborate experiments and induc-
tions of Dr. Hall. Such as are skeptical as to the independence
of the organic properties of the nervous power, should study
Haller, and the great work of Wilson Philip on “ The Laws
of the Vital Functions." To these works I would also respect-
fully call the farther attention of some of the present able writers
upon the functions of the nervous system, who, as it appears to
me, are losing sight of the organic properties, and attributing to
the nervous power what belongs to the former.(1) When the
(1) I do not, of course, concur in the following very important conclusions
in Dr. Hall's late - Memoir” :-
“The spinal marrow," says Dr. Hall,“ exclusive of the cerebrum, is the source
of animal life.”
Animal life, I apprehend, depends as well upon the organic properties, or
vital principle, as organic life. The spinal marrow is a “source” of the ner-
vous power, whilst sensation, both in animal and organic life, is related to the
brain. If, also, sensation or other cerebral phenomena disappear by interrupt-
ing the spinal cord, it hardly follows that the brain and its prolongation may
not be mutually concerned in all the phenomena which relate to the nervous
system, in their state of integrity. Experiments are here surrounded by so
many accidents, that their results must be constantly brought to the test of the
natural phenomena, or of such experiments as occur in Philip's 6 Inquiry into

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
43
foregoing authors are comprehended, the foundation of medical
philosophy is laid. But for our physiological example.
“ The whole system of respiratory nerves," says Müller, “can be excited to
action by irritation of any part of the mucous membrane, from the mouth to
the anus, from the nostrils to the lungs.”
the Laws of the Vital Functions.” I distinguish, of course, between irrita-
bility and sensibility. If the former be affected in other parts than the nervous
tissue by disease or by injuries of the brain or spinal cord, or by experiments
upon them, it is in consequence of a pernicious nervous influence which is de-
termined upon that property of organic life. This clearly appears from Dr.
Hall's next following propositions, namely, —
“That the cerebrum is, in its acts of volition, an exhauster of that irritability,
(the irritability of the muscles of organic life :)
“That in muscles separated from their nervous connexion with the brain, we have
augmented irritability :
“ That in muscles separated from their nervous connexion with the spinal mar-
row, we have, on the contrary, diminished irritability.”
Here the organic property, irritability, is variously modified according to
the manner in which it is influenced by injuries done to the nervous con-
nexions. The nervous power, also, may be strongly affected by the simple
division of a nerve, as we know by the inflammation it may produce in
parts which the nerve supplies, – irritability being thus exalted. (See the
Med, and Phys. Commentaries, vol. 1, p. 474–480.) — Or it may be, as I have
stated in the « Commentaries,” that “when inflammation is excited by dividing
a nerve, or by paralysis, the organic forces are directly altered by suddenly
withdrawing the nervous influence, as well as by thus deranging the mutual
relations between the forces which animate the different tissues of a part ;
those relations being equally influenced by the nervous power.” (Comm.,
vol. 1, p. 572.) Again,
“The irritability of the muscles of organic life,” says Dr. Hall, “ depends proba-
bly on the ganglionic system.” (Hall, on Diseases and Derangements of the Ner-
vous System, p. 222: 1841.)
On the contrary, I apprehend that irritability is everywhere as independent
of the nervous system in animals, as it is in vegetables. It is only influenced
by that system. Nor can it be admitted that the cerebrum is, in its acts of
volition, an exhauster of the irritability of the muscles of organic life.” The
irritability of those muscles is always in a state of equilibrium in health, as
shown by the unvarying nature of the organic functions. When I speak of
the brain and spinal cord as the centre of the nervous power, I refer to the
animal in its state of integrity. The ganglionic system may be also a centre
of this power, and the power may be developed in the spinal cord and in por-
tions of the nerves when separated from their connexion with the brain, or
spinal cord. The phenomena of contiguous sympathy are here important, as
well as certain experiments upon isolated parts; though we should bear in
mind the difficulty of separating, entirely, any part from its connexions with
the brain and spinal cord, unless when wholly abstracted from the body.

44
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
Müller says,
It is through this principle that emetics and cathartics pro-
duce their most sensible manifestations, and the same is con-
cerned in all their influences upon other parts. It is the same
as concerns the process of respiration, which takes place after
the following manner. The point of departure is the mucous
tissue of the lungs, from which an impression (arising probably
from the partial absence of atmospheric air) is transmitted
through the pneumogastric nerve, as well as through the gang-
lionic, to the brain and spinal cord, (especially the medulla ob-
longata,) where the nervous power is developed and reflected
upon
the
organic properties of the muscles of respiration, through
the various motor nerves of those organs. These muscles are,
in consequence, thrown into action, and the thorax is thus ex-
panded.
6 like
many
other
persons, I sneeze whenever
the bright light of the sun falls on my eyes.” (P. 352.) Here
the process is more complex, and shadows forth the far more
intricate processes that are going forward, — the almost endless
circles of sympathy which are taking place, — during the pro-
gress or decline of disease, or those which are set up by the ope-
ration of an emetic, a cathartic, &c. In the example before us,
the sensation is transmitted to the brain and spinal cord, where
the nervous power is developed and reflected upon the schni-
derian membrane. Here a new sensation arises which is sent
back to the brain and spinal cord, the nervous power again de-
veloped, and, according to relations between that membrane and
the respiratory organs, the nervous power is now reflected upon
the respiratory muscles, when sneezing follows as the result of
the convulsive movement. Again, the mind will do the same
thing, when dwelling intensely upon a former paroxysm of
sneezing. Sympathetic yawning, and sympathetic micturition,
are of this nature; the mind being then the stimulus which de-
velops the nervous power.
The examples of sympathetic influences, through the reflex
action of the brain and spinal cord, are almost endless, as they
also are in every part of the animal organism. They supply
the most ample ground for the interpretation of the effects of re-
medial and morbific agents in their wide range of influences.
The modifications of the circles of sympathy which relate to the
respiratory system alone, as in coughing, crying, laughing,
yawning, &c., are a fruitful field of inquiry into great and pre-

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
45
cise laws, and extensively applicable to the philosophy of medi-
cine. The only difference is, that, when disease is established
in a part, or when remedial agents operate, the organic proper-
ties of the part are altered in their nature, and, of course, the
organic actions over which they preside. A specific impression,
in the latter cases, is transmitted to the cerebro-spinal axis, and
from thence reflected through other nerves upon the organic pro-
perties of other parts, and, according to its nature, disease will
be produced or mitigated in those parts. However complex
and variable, therefore, the phenomena, nothing can be more
simple than the principle through which all these changes are
produced
When an emetic operates, the philosophy of its influences is
the same as that which relates to respiration, &c. The impres-
sion upon the stomach is transmitted to the brain and spinal
cord through the pneumogastric and ganglionic nerves, the ner-
vous power developed and reflected in the foregoing manner
upon the respiratory nerves, whilst another current descends
along other fibres of the pneumogastric to the muscular tissue
of the stomach. If the emetic operate, also, as a cathartic, then
a new chain of actions is established, in the same way, in the
abdominal muscles, whilst a current of the nervous power is
propagated upon the muscular coat of the intestines. (1)
(1) Among the sound practical conclusions, and shrewd observations, for which
Dr. Holland's Medical Notes and Reflections are distinguished, and which reach far
into the profound philosophy of life, is the following remark. “A single emetic,”
he says, “ may cut short a paroxysm of asthma for which opiates and antispasmodics
have been employed in vain.” Dr. Holland has also propounded the essential mode
in which the emetic produces relief; and were the same philosophical principles
more generally understood, we should less frequently witness abortive attempts to
accomplish by “opiates and anti-spasmodics” what may be often “cut short" by
an emetic, or again by loss of blood. Thus:-
"I need hardly advert but slightly,” says this philosopher, “ to the benefit derived
from emetics in asthma ; though here again it must be admitted that there is an in-
sufficient use of the remedy, seeing the great good gained in many such cases by
unloading the stomach and liver; and the equal advantage, though less obvious in
explanation, from its influence on the actions of the circulation and nervous system.”
(P. 313.)
A part of the "influence" through the medium of the nervous system, I apprehend
to be the following. During the paroxysm, the respiratory muscles are employed in
embarrassed acts of respiration ; but, as soon as the emetic operates, they are thrown
by the nervous power into a new series of convulsive movements, by which the res-
piratory are brought back to their natural condition. If the stomach be offended by
irritating food, &c., its removal alone may take off the main cause of that peculiar
development and determination of the nervous power which affects the respiratory

46
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
But, in the foregoing case something more happens than in the
natural processes. Here the exciting cause possesses peculiar
virtues, is of a morbific nature, and it not only makes peculiar
impressions upon the alimentary mucous tissue, according to
the exact nature of its virtues, but it modifies the nervous power
in a corresponding manner. If the stomach be the seat of dis-
ease, the direct impression upon that organ, or the change which
an emetic may effect in its vital condition, will be more or less
varied from what is exerted in a state of health. It may, there-
fore, prove curative to the stomach by this direct influence. But
the nervous power is also modified according to the impression
produced upon the organic properties of the stomach, and is
sent abroad, with alterative effect, upon various parts of the
system. According to a law by which diseased parts are far
more susceptible of influences from vital stimuli than such
as are not diseased, the modified nervous power will fall with
far greater effect upon the former than the latter. The organic
properties and actions of one may be profoundly and permanently
affected, whilst the latter are only moderately and very tempo-
rarily influenced. In consequence, also, of the deep effect which
the modified nervous power exerts on the diseased parts, they
may return, at once, to their natural state.
But the milder influences which are set up by the nervous
power upon parts in health, or in comparative exemption from
disease, play, also, their part in the salutary process. If the
emetic operate also as a cathartic, impressions are transmitted
from the intestinal mucous membrane to the cerebro-spinal sys-
tem, the nervous power developed and modified according to
the nature of these impressions, and radiated abroad as when
the result of the action of the emetic upon the stomach, and
with effects corresponding to this new development and modi-
fication of the nervous power.
Again the skin is influenced in the foregoing manner, and this
organ transmits that impression to the cerebro-spinal axis, and
develops and modifies the nervous power accordingly, when it
is, as in the other instance, reflected abroad, and is felt by va-
rious parts according to their degrees of susceptibility. Various
muscles, and thus, mostly, the paroxysm may be removed. In other cases, where
bloodletting is the remedy, there is a state of venous congestion of the lungs,- per-
haps, also, of the liver. The loss of blood then relieves by subduing the morbid
state of the veins. (See Medical and Physiological Commentaries, vol. 2, p. 494--502,
where this subject is fully investigated.)

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
47
other circles of sympathy of the same nature set in, and become
too complex for analysis; but all may fall with one concurring,
curative effect upon the diseased susceptible organs.
We thus see that when vomiting springs from the operation
of tartarized antimony, and often from ipecacuanha, it is only
one of the consequences, and a minor one, of the peculiar irrita-
tion of the gastro-mucous membrane. Other and far more pow-
erful influences are determined, simultaneously, upon the or-
ganic properties and actions of distant and diseased parts, (per-
haps as distant as the most remote extremity,) by the same
nervous power that shook the respiratory organs during the act
of vomiting. And often, indeed, does it happen that those in-
fluences are propagated with the most profound effect, when the
act of vomiting fails of being consummated; and nausea alone
shall send with prostrating effect the modified nervous power
over the whole system; when we shall see it simultaneously
bathing the whole surface with perspiration ; pouring the saliva
from the mouth ; breaking down a tumultuous excitement of the
heart and arteries ; starting on the instant a torrent of bile, and
an equal effusion from the intestinal mucous membrane ; and,
at the next moment, calling up a magnificent play of sympa-
thies for the evacuation of the fluids, after the manner of an
active purgative, – these very effusions, also, instituting other
circles of sympathy, which join in the great work of curative
movements. Should vomiting now follow, then shall you
speedily see the vital energies returning, — the cold pale skin
giving place to a florid hue and a warm perspiration, the
sunken features starting into the fulness of health, - the gastric
suffering gone as a luxury obtained, - the general whirl of
anxiety and distress converted into calm tranquillity, — the head-
ache dissipated, — the twang of the croup, or the grunt of
pneumonia, no longer sounding an alarm ; — and, all this stu-
pendous succession of events, from the beginning of nausea to
the restoration of the vital energies and the near resolution of
disease, - composing a most astonishing consecutive series of
sympathies, — may require less time than I have hastily em-
ployed in this general allusion to the subject. And now can it
be entertained, that this has been the result of absorption, or
that the laws of chemistry or physics have had any connexion
with the phenomena?

48
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
The foregoing may be taken as an example of the principle
which concerns the modus operandi of all curative or morbific
agents, whether physical or moral, and of all the developments
of disease that arise as sympathetic consequences of each other.
In respect to emetics, however, it should be considered that all
do not produce the foregoing effects, and that with the exception
of the act of vomiting, the results will depend upon the precise
nature of the emetic, or the manner in which it modifies the
nervous power and thus impresses the organic properties. This
explains the difference in results between tartarized antimony,
ipecacuanha, sulphate of zinc, warm water, tickling the fauces,
the mechanical irritation of undigested food, the shock of a fall,
of a surgical operation, sailing, whirling, offensive sights, offen-
sive odours, loss of blood, and even their recollection; whilst
the nature and effect of the greater number should lead the phi-
losophical inquirer to pause at the physical doctrine of absorp-
tion, and survey the other difficulties with which it is fatally
encumbered.
When the alterations, of a sympathetic nature, are more slowly
produced, as when mercury gradually induces salivation, and
brings the whole system under its influence, or when small, and
repeated doses of tartarized antimony overcome inflammations
of the lungs, &c., the nervous power is developed and modified
at each successive dose, and the repetition of its influence upon
the organic properties of diseased parts remote from the stomach
establishes progressive changes, till an absolute condition of dis-
ease may be induced in certain parts, as when mercury salivates ;
whilst the analogous influences which are exerted on parts al-
ready diseased supplant the naturally morbid states by others of
an artificial nature, from which the organic properties are
able to return to their healthy condition. But these impres-
sions must be frequently repeated ; for if the interval be long
between the administration of the doses of such agents as only
produce their effects in a gradual manner, the diseased condi-
tions, not being placed in the way of the recuperative tendency,
will throw off the artificial impression, and the original inten-
sity of disease will be thus restored. The process which I am
now considering is an example of the cumulative effect of reme-
dial agents, some of which are much more remarkable than
others, and the ultimate results are pronounced with varying
degrees of suddenness. This is also influenced by peculiarities

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
49
of constitution, or of susceptibilities of the organic properties to
changes now under consideration; and therefore is it, that sali-
vation may be speedily induced in one subject by less than a
grain of calomel, whilst no amount of the remedy will produce
this effect in others. And so of the morbific effects of digitalis;
an agent, also, which exemplifies the instantaneousness with
which alteratives may produce an explosion of disease, although
no symptoms had admonished us of its approach. This prin-
ciple concerns, also, the predisposition to disease which is formed
by miasmata, the virus of smallpox, of hydrophobia, &c.
The permanent operation of the nervous power in particular
parts of the animal fabric, as in the sphincters, supply an ele-
gant parallel with the foregoing uninterrupted influences of the
same power as developed by remedial or morbific agents. This
power operates as a perpetual stimulus to the organic properties
of the muscles just mentioned, in the same way as blood does
to the heart and capillary arteries. And now, if we mutilate
the inferior part of the spinal cord, or observe the sphincter ani
when relaxed in bad cases of apoplexy, or regard its condition
when the spinal cord is merely divided, we shall see the rela-
tive bearing upon other organs of these two parts of the nervous
system in their connected state, but with injury of the brain, and
how the spinal cord is capable of an independent influence.
(See note at page 42.)
When moral causes operate in the cure, or production of dis-
ease, they act directly upon the cerebro-spinal axis, and devel-
ope and modify the nervous power according to the nature of
each mental affection; and, as in the case of physical agents,
the nervous power thus developed and modified may be deter-
mined as well upon the organic properties of the brain and
spinal cord, as upon other parts. (See note, page 42.) The
blow
upon the region of the stomach, or the opening of a thecal
abscess, which have destroyed life on the instant, operate in the
same way as the paroxysms of anger, or of joy, which have been
as suddenly fatal. In these cases the nervous power is first de-
termined with a fatal effect upon the organic properties of the
nervous centre.
The artificial modifications of the nervous power have anal-
ogies in the natural modifications of sensibility, irritability, &c.,
in different organs and tissues, and in tissues of the same nature;
as the mucous for example. But, there are more striking anal-
7

50
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
ogies in the artificial temperaments, and as the organic proper-
ties are affected in the various conditions of disease.
We need not inquire into the nature of the nervous power, or
of the organic properties. It would be as absurd as to interro-
gate the nature of gravitation, or of any other property of mere
matter, or even of matter itself; though we may well say what
the nervous and organic powers are not, and thus save much
speculation and its resulting practice. We know enough of
the whole, for all the purposes of philosophy, and for the good
of mankind, by the phenomena alone; but since the phenomena
of organic beings are far more diversified than those which
relate to inorganic matter, so, also, should we be as contented
with the former as with the latter, and apply them in the same
philosophical and practical manner. We also know enough of
physics to marvel at nothing in organic beings which may be
utterly different from the constitution, the phenomena, and the
laws of inorganic matter; and if it seem mysterious that such
an agent should exist as the nervous power, with the character-
istics which I have here assigned, it will become less wonderful
when we reflect upon the phenomena of the immaterial mind in
its connexion with organization, as in voluntary motion, blush-
ing, palpitation, syncope, apoplexy, &c., or even upon the velo-
city of light and the inconceivable rapidity of its undulations;
and, above all, that it is not an improbable doctrine, that the
light, heat, and deoxydizing property, of the solar beam, reside
in a common principle, and are due to modifications of that
principle by foreign influences. So, also, in respect to the modi-
fied developments of the common agent upon which the pheno-
mena of electricity and galvanism depend.
Having now completed the outline of the doctrines which it
was my purpose to set forth in a more connected manner
than on former occasions, I shall add a few explanatory re-
marks.
The impressions which are made in organic life, by vital
agents, whether natural, morbific, or remedial, are mostly upon
the irritability, but partially on sensibility. (See note, p. 42.)
The latter property is the subject of impressions particularly in
animal life; though it becomes more or less involved in organic
by the accidents of disease. (See Med. and Phys. Commenta-
ries, vol. 1, p. 474-480, p. 5684-572; vol. 2, p. 18—20.) Per-
ception is necessary to sensation, and whenever actions take

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
51
place independently of sensation through the medium of the
nervous power, the impressions are transmitted to the cerebro-
spinal axis by the irritability of the nerves. In organic life, ,
the reflected nervous power operates, first, upon irritability, from
which it is imparted to mobility, &c., and this is probably also
true in animal life; though in the latter case, when sensation
arises, the impressions which are transmitted to the brain and
spinal cord are through the medium of sensibility. In volun-
tary motion, the mind develops the nervous power and directs
it upon the irritability of the particular muscles. In all the
cases of primary impression, however, where perception is ex-
cited, sensibility is more or less interested. When morbific or
remedial agents operate, they modify the irritability of the part
upon which their direct action is exerted, and in a way peculiar
to the virtues of each; which is the cause of the modifications of
the nervous power. These, being reflected upon the irritability
of diseased parts, modify that, and consecutively the other or-
ganic properties, according to the acquired peculiarities of the
whole. The principle is the same as it respects the passions
and all the mental emotions. Our remedial agents, therefore,
will be curative or morbific according to the alterations which
they may thus produce. I cannot enter upon the details of facts
by which all this is perpetually illustrated. Every mind is
adequate to the inquiry. If the brain, or any part of the nervous
system, be the seat of disease, of irritation, &c., the preternatural
development of the nervous power is direct, and exceedingly
various in its nature and intensity. It is also liable to remarka-
ble developments and results from the mechanical irritation of
remote parts; as when undigested food produces apoplexy, or a
blow upon the epigastric region, or a slight surgical operation,
is followed by instant death.
The nervous power is not only variously excited, exalted, or
depressed, or modified in its kind, and produces influences upon
remote parts according to these changes, but it is reflected upon
particular parts according to their existing susceptibilities, the
nature of the remote cause, and the part upon which the remote
cause may operate. Thus one impression from cold, as a blast
of cold air, or a drop of cold water upon the skin, will rouse the
respiratory muscles. Another impression from the same cause
will excite catarrh, or pneumonia, or articular rheumatism. (See
Med. and Phys. Comm. vol. 2, pp. 18, 41–50.) Mercurial

52
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
ointment will determine the nervous power specially upon the
salivary glands, and liver, and the same effects arise from the
action of mercury upon the stomach. Cantharides, internally
or externally applied, irritates the neck of the bladder. One de-
gree of impression by tartarized antimony upon the stomach
determines the nervous power upon the respiratory muscles, and
vomiting is the consequence; whilst it simultaneously reflects
the same power upon the skin, as it does in smaller doses, and
of which perspiration is a consequence, - and so on. But these
examples embrace only certain parts of the influences in each
case; whilst in others, they are far more complex, — one sym-
pathetic result becoming the cause of others, till, through a
single impression upon the organic properties of the skin, various
circles of morbific or remedial sympathies may be instituted.
Narcotics induce peculiar modifications of the nervous power
when they are administered by the stomach, and the power
thus modified is not only reflected upon various distant parts
with effects corresponding with its modifications, but especially,
also, upon the organic and animal properties of the brain and
spinal cord. Hence the obtuseness of the senses, and the venous
congestions of the brain, which follow their improper adminis-
tration. (See Med, and Phys. Commentaries, vol. 2, p. 480—
488.)
Notwithstanding, however, the complexity of the results that
arise from the sympathetic processes in which the nervous sys-
tem is concerned, whether excited by healthy, morbific, or re-
medial agents, they all depend on a common law.
I have but little to add specifically upon the doctrine of the
absorption of remedial and morbific substances to what I have
extensively set forth in my treatise on the Humoral Pathology.
I will, however, state a few objections more, which, like those
offered in the Commentaries, will suggest a multitude of others.
may point to one, also, which I have stated in my Materia
Medica, (p. 180,) relative to the variety of results which follow
different quantities of certain preparations of iron, whilst it can-
not be said that the slight natural ratio belonging to the blood
is increased. The same considerations are equally applicable to
a vast number of remedial agents. Wedemeyer and Müller tes-
tify to the fatal effect of one drop of the hydrocyanic acid within
a single second, when introduced into the eye of a rabbit; whilst
Müller allows that from half a minute to two minutes are neces-

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
53
sary to the absorption of other substances. Magendie kills
“the most vigorous dogs" by applying to the fauces one drop of
the hydrocyanic acid, “after two or three hurried inspirations.”
Pereira says that he once caused the instantaneous death of a
rabbit by applying its nose to a receiver filled with the vapour
of the pure acid. The animal was killed without the least
struggle.” And so did Magendie. Pereira adds, that in cases
of this nature, “the rapid action of the poisons seems almost in-
compatible with the idea of their absorption." (Pereira's Ma-
teria Medica, pp. 27, 242.) Look at the action of opium. Apply
it to the mucous tissue of the intestine, the local impression is
such that it immediately arrests the peristaltic movements. (See
Med. and Phys. Commentaries, vol. 1, pp. 477–480, 506—
512, 563—576, for many analogous experiments, and for an
examination of Prof. Müller's doctrine that "the narcotic ac-
tion of opium does not react from a particular point of a nerve
on the brain.") Apply it to the surface of the brain, and it in-
stantly lessens the action of the heart, and capillary blood ves-
sels, &c. Now combine these phenomena, when opium exerts
its direct action upon the stomach, and indirectly upon the heart,
capillary system, &c., and consider the natural relations between
the stomach and nervous centre. Take a substantial, physical
fact, as supplied by the advocates of absorption. Thus:-
“It is very singular,” says Sigmond, 6 that a pill of opium, administered at
night, will be VOMITED UP in the morning, after having produced its narcotic ef-
fect. This is an observation which Van Sweiten originally made.” SIGMOND's
Lectures, in London Lancet, 1836-7, p. 423.
The phenomenon, however, ceases to be so “very singular”
the moment my doctrine is admitted.
"I am acquainted with a physician in London," says Sigmond," "who, on
taking opium, although in a very minute quantity, will have over the surface
of the body a scarlet efflorescence.” — Ibid.
Is not this phenomenon due to the same principle as that which
is concerned when indigestible food occasions analogous erup-
tions, or when they spring up, as in infancy, especially, from
gastric and intestinal derangements ?
The snuff which regales the nose, and the tobacco which
equally delights the mouth, are violent poisons to the intestinal
mucous membrane; and the constitutional results harmonize with
the local effects in either case. Again, if remedial, or poisonous

54
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
substances act by absorption, why is tobacco smoke so innoxious
when inhaled by the lungs, and yet so deleterious when swal-
lowed, or when conveyed into the rectum? Most remedial
agents, indeed, produce constitutional effects according to the
natural vital modifications not only of the mucous, and other tis-
sues of different parts, but of one continuous tissue, as the mu-
cous membrane of the eyes, nose, fauces, esophagus, stomach,
small and large intestines, larynx, trachea, and lungs. Where
would philosophy be; where our interpretation of these various
consequences, if we followed the chemist in his physical views
of life? What would tobacco affect in such a case? Would it
nauseate by affecting chemical affinity, or cohesion, or elastici.
ty, or would the nose or the mouth enjoy through any such
properties of matter, — or would galvanism help our under-
standing? Is it through any such properties that we feel the
smart when the fire burns? Does not Pereira supply an im-
portant fact against his general doctrine of operation by absorp-
tion when he defends a moderate practice of opium smoking, –
especially as the whole volume of smoke is drawn into the
lungs ? (Mat. Med. p. 1293.) Shall we not rather look to
what is known of the natural modifications of irritability in the
mucous tissue of different organs ? If opium offend the stomach,
the principle is the same as when urine excoriates the mem-
brane of the lungs, and thus produces the most violent consti-
tutional effects. But the distinguished author above quoted shall
lay down our principle himself. Thus: -
Sir B. Brodie,” he says, “ found that an infusion of tobacco, thrown into the
rectum, paralyzed the heart, and caused death in a few minutes. But if the
head of the animal be previously removed, and artificial respiration kept up, the
heart remains unaffected; proving that tobacco disorders this organ through the
medium of the nervous system only.” (Ibid., p. 869. See, also, my note, p. 42.)
Should we not rather say, through the medium of the brain
in its connexion with the spinal marrow, whilst other parts may
be sympathetically affected through the spinal marrow or even
the ganglionic system, alone. (See Med. and Phys. Comm.
vol. 1, p. 570 — 572.) And now contrast with the foregoing
peculiarities of tobacco and opium, the fact that the inhalation
of the fumes of hyosciamus produces vertigo, tremors, laborious
respiration, &c.; and that hydrocyanic acid, in the quantity of a
drop, or in vapour, on account of the coincident relations of its
virtues to the naturally modified organic properties of various

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
parts, is instantly fatal, whether applied to the mucous tissue of
the eyes, nose, mouth, stomach, or lungs. And so of the spiritu-
ous extract of nux vomica. If absorption be good in some of
the cases, it should be equally so in the others. (See extract
from Bichat, p. 36. Consider, too, how the habitual use of
narcotics reduces the susceptibility of the stomach to the influ-
ence of each one, respectively, and not to the others, and how
the constitutional effects go on, pari passu, in the ratio of the
local effects. And consider, also, how music assuages suffering,
or the expectation of the dentist relieves the tooth-ache. And
why, according to the doctrine of absorption, should not medi-
cines produce the same constitutional effects when injected into
the bladder, as when administered by the stomach ? Are you
doubtful as to the manner in which certain substances produce
their constitutional effects, when applied to the skin, as mercury
and tobacco, for example ? Consider the foregoing case of hy-
drocyanic acid ; or how an issue relieves deep seated inflamma-
tion; or, again, how belladonna, or hyosciamus, when applied to
the lids of the eyes, as when to the stomach, produces dilatation
of the pupils.
Again, let us observe the constitutional effects of tartarized
antimony, when administered in small and repeated doses. This
substance possesses, in a general sense, the power of lessening
the irritability of the stomach, (in relation to its own virtues,)
where the doses are small at first, and gradually increased. From
this principle, indeed, results the necessity of increasing the
doses as far as they may be borne without nausea, for the pur-
pose of maintaining the same influence upon disease as is exert-
ed by the first and smaller doses. In this way, in certain affec-
tions, as in croup and rheumatism, we may sometimes rapidly
increase the doses from the sixteenth of a grain to two grains,
although the first dose shall have actually produced vomiting,
whilst the two grains are borne without nausea.
It is also cer-
tain that this progressive increase of the remedy, as far as may
be admitted by the stomach, is indispensable to the full influence
upon disease which was exerted by the smaller doses before the
remedy had subdued the irritability of the stomach.
Now were the physical, and not the physiological, doctrine
true, there should be no necessity for this regular and rapid in-
crease of the doses. The nearer, indeed, each dose approaches
the point of nausea, so will the general arterial excitement, and

56
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
local inflammations, be held in subjection ; from which it is
plainly manifest that the remote effects depend upon the amount
of influence produced upon the stomach. And so of opium, and
all the narcotics, and, indeed, of various other agents which are
freely assumed to operate through the circulation.
But again on the contrary, we may obtain an exactly opposite
series of results from tartarized antimony; by which we prove
our proposition by the converse of the foregoing phenomena.
We may begin the treatment by one-eighth of a grain without
producing nausea; but in an hour or two afterwards, a repeti-
tion of the same dose nauseates the stomach, and prostrates the
whole system. Again, at the same interval, we repeat the same
dose and vomiting ensues, accompanied by still greater consti-
tutional effects. We then reduce the quantity to the twelfth of
a grain, and again we have nausea and vomiting, with still
greater constitutional results. We go on to reduce the dose in
this manner, and, as I have witnessed in adults, it has been ne-
cessary to diminish the quantity to the thirtieth part of a grain
to avoid protracted nausea, and a general prostration of the
sys-
tem. Here, then, the remedy not only continues to nauseate
the stomach in greatly diminished doses, but, as in the opposite
case, there is a constant ratio between its impression on the
irritability of the stomach and its constitutional influences and
its special effects on diseased remote organs. However the dose
may be diminished, so long as it impresses the irritability of the
stomach, it breaks down the general arterial excitement, and
often overthrows inflammation just as fully, and rapidly, as
when two grains are administered with a similar effect upon
the stomach. Nor is this all which antimony opposes to the
doctrine of absorption ; since in the cases first supposed, when
it finally produces nausea after repeated and gradually increased
doses, it does not reduce the irritability of the stomach after that
dose, as after the beginning of the remedy, and when it did not
produce nausea. On the contrary, the gastric irritability is now
brought up to a full relation to the remedy in that last dose,
where it either remains permanently for some time, or is quite
as apt to increase in susceptibility to the antimonial influence,
so that it may be necessary to diminish the next following dose
to avoid a renewal of the nausea, and perhaps vomiting. In the
meantime the effects on the constitution, and on remote disease,
are exactly conformable to the amount of influence upon the
stomach.

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
57
Pereira has rendered his valuable work on Materia Medica
liable to the objection which I am now considering, as he has,
also, to that of reasoning from the effects of remedies on man
in health, and even upon the naturally modified constitution of
animals and plants, to the altered susceptibilities of man as they
exist in disease. (-) Of tartar emetic, he says, we do not know
"the mode in which it produces its curative effects.” And again,
“Shall we deny the efficacy of bloodletting in inflammation, of mercury in
syphilis, of cinchona in intermittents, and of a host of other remedies, simply
because we cannot account for their beneficial effects? “The fact is," he con-
tinues, " that in the present state of our knowledge, we cannot explain the
modus medendi of a large number of our best and most certain remedial
agents.” (Pereira's Mat. Med. vol. 1, p. 417. 1839.)
This supposed ignorance is mostly predicated of the failure
of detecting the medicines in the circulation ; but will it apply
to such observers as explain their modus operandi on other
principles, and in conformity with well established facts ? If
“ bloodletting be efficacious in inflammation, mercury in syphi-
lis, &c., they are so through great and immutable laws; and
shall we rest in ignorance of those laws because we cannot
deny the efficacy of the remedies? Is it not this very common
representation of the topics before us, and of the phenomena of
living beings, which has led to so general a disregard of the
great principles in medicine, and to the revival of the exploded
creeds of the iatro-chemical and iatro-mechanical philosophers ?
Or is it any argument against the interpretation of the proper-
ties and laws of organic beings, of their modifications in disease,
of the modus operandi of remedial agents, as set forth by one
inquirer, that fifty different and conflicting systems have been
projected by others ? Such, indeed, must be the position of
every disputed topic when universal truth shall ultimately pre-
vail. The argument, therefore, however common, is necessarily
fallacious.
There is no objection to admitting that all remedial and mor-
bific agents find their way, very scantily, into the circulation,
excepting as it regards the matter of fact, and a respect for those
principles which nature has ordained for their exclusion so far
(1) Our able author, however, sometimes sustains the physiological doctrines.
Thus, of Elaterium, he says that, "in cerebral affections, such as apoplexy, mania,
&c., elaterium, as a drastic purgative, sometimes proves serviceable on the princi-
ple of counter-irritation.” (Ibid. p. 1088.)
8

58
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
as to prevent their ingress in injurious quantities. (See this ques-
tion largely examined in my Essay on the Humoral Patholo-
gy.) No conclusions, as I have shown, can be formed from the
effects of injections into the circulation; which are the rudest
facts in relation to a topic of this nature.
It therefore becomes
the merest assumption to affirm that the minute proportions of
medicines, which may steal their way through the well guarded
portals of the organism, produce those remarkable results which
we witness after their administration by the stomach; whilst
we are met at the threshold of the inquiry by the clearest inter-
pretation of their modus operandi in the perfectly demonstrable
laws of sympathy, in a stupendous display of the operations of
the nervous power in the natural conditions of the body, and as
modified by a vast variety of experiments, and by the morbid
processes that are perpetually before us. I have formerly en-
deavoured to indicate how derogatory to medical philosophy is
the doctrine of operation by absorption,-how pernicious its
practical tendencies.
Again, take the grand characteristics of the cinchonas, arsenic,
calomel, and the whole group of agents for intermittent diseases.
Of cinchona, Pereira says, after having expounded its operation
as a tonic through the process of absorption,) that in intermittent
diseases its methodus medendi is quite inexplicable.” (Ibid.
vol. 2, pp. 1002, 1006. 1840.) But, is not its mode of operation
just as intelligible in one case as in the other ? Does not the
whole system of nature, where common results are concerned
in any integral part, enforce the belief that the same laws are
concerned in both cases, and do not all the relative facts in
physiology, all that is known of the properties of life, and of
the constitutional effects of vital stimuli of any denomination,
proclaim the fact, and that nature is just as consistent in this
instance, as she is in the simple principles which determine the
phenomena of gravitation, of chemical affinity, of the attraction
of cohesion, of repulsion, &c., or, in more sensible physics, of
electricity, of light, of magnetism, &c. ? If we refer, as does
Pereira, to the effects of cinchona as a tonic, upon the healthy
system, we must explain the methodus operandi before we can
apply it in the least to any parallel effects upon morbid and en-
feebled states of the system. But we may not speak of “aug.
mentation of cohesion of the organic mass,” &c. (Ibid. p. 1002.)
These are only effects of an antecedent operation, in which the

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
59
whole modus operandi consists. But the mode in which cin-
chona produces its effects in the perfect organism being just as
obscure as in diseased states, we start with our interpretation of
its modus operandi in intermittents, just as we do of the mode
in which cinchona produces its fullest effects in health; or raises
the vigour of the stomach, sharpens the appetite, and braces up
the animal man, in dyspeptic affections.
Now the mode in which cinchona accomplishes these last re-
sults is no more obvious than its action as a febrifuge. One
must certainly be as plain as the other, since the essential in-
fluences and changes are exerted upon the organic properties of
living parts, which are governed by simple and immutable laws.
To explain the operation of a given cause upon two principles
where the results are of the same genus, and nearly of the same
species, would be to disjoint nature completely, and to render
her a deformity.
With this fundamental principle, we move forward to the in-
terpretation of the effects of cinchona when it exasperates or
produces disease; and so of other morbific agents. All the re-
sults, as they vary from those which follow the ordinary stim-
uli of life, depend upon the mutability of the organic properties
and actions. Upon these, morbific causes, like the natural vital
stimuli, make their whole impression; but they go farther in that
impression than the natural stimuli of life. That is to say, they
make their impression so profoundly, and in virtue of their pe-
culiar attributes, as to alter the natural condition of the organic
properties and actions; and this alteration constitutes disease.
All that follows are but mere " sequelæ.” Remedial agents, as
we have seen, are capable of doing the same thing; and when
direct in action, they operate upon the same principle. It is for
this reason, therefore, that they produce disease in the healthy
organism; and when they contribute to the cure of disease, it is
in virtue of that morbific action which they exert on healthy
parts. They are a class of morbific agents, however, which
produce only such diseases, in health, (if not administered in
great excess,) as are of a transient nature; and when, therefore,
administered for the cure of disease, they induce a morbid state
more favourable than the pre-existing to the natural tendency of
morbid organic properties and actions to return to their healthy
standard.
Thus we get at a common principle of the methodus operandi

60
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
of cinchona as a tonic, as a febrifuge, and as a morbific agent;
and it is equally applicable to all remedies which possess abso-
lute remedial virtues. This philosophy enables us at once to
understand how arsenic, cobweb, opium, alcohol, moral emo-
tions, and almost every thing else, are, like cinchona, more or
less curative of intermittent fevers; and though the alterations
which are directly instituted by these various agents are unlike
in all the instances, and correspond with the peculiar virtues of
each agent, each one induces such changes in the organic pro-
perties as enable them to take on their natural tendency towards
a state of health, — some being more conducive than others, and
either liable to exasperate the disease. We thus see, also, how
it is that our remedies must be well adapted to the existing pa-
thology, or they will prove morbific; since their operation is as
well regulated by the nature of the morbid conditions as by the
virtues of the remedies.
That there is a methodus operandi, in all the foregoing cases,
is too certain to be questioned ; and such being the fact, it is
quite a becoming occupation for the human mind to interrogate
its nature; or as Bacon has it, “it is the Glory of God to con-
ceal a thing, and the glory of man to find it out."
I will now present a comprehensive example which illustrates
the foregoing doctrines. A seton, passed through the skin of
the neck, or even of the arm, removes inflammation of the eyes.
In this instance, nothing can possibly enter the circulation, but
the whole influence of the seton upon the eyes must be exerted
through the medium of the brain and spinal cord. By tracing
out all the effects of which this seton is capable, we may show
that it involves all the principles which are concerned in the
production of disease and its cure.
In the first place, the seton establishes an inflammation in the
part of the skin in which it is inserted. Here we have the whole
interpretation of morbific agents in producing their primary dis-
eases. Like the seton, all others act upon the irritability of parts,
to which they are applied, alter its nature, and involve the other
organic properties in corresponding changes, when a change of
function ensues as a consequence; and then may follow a va-
riety of physical results.
Now let us consider the seton in its curative aspect, as it re-
lates to the ophthalmic inflammation. The morbid state of the
skin operates as a peculiar stimulus, the result of which is trans-

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
61
mitted to the cerebro-spinal axis, where it develops and modifies
the nervous power, which is then reflected upon various parts.
But the intensity of the nervous power, thus developed, is not
sufficient to alter the organic properties of any part excepting the
susceptible ones which conduct the inflammatory affection of the
eyes through their instruments of action, and therefore no sym-
pathetic disease is produced. But irritability being preternatu-
rally susceptible in the inflamed eyes, the nervous power operates
with effect upon it, and alters the nature of that and other pro-
perties so as to enable them to return to their natural state; and
thus the inflammation subsides.
We will next see how this seton may become the cause of
sympathetic diseases in remote parts, and we shall then, also,
have the whole of the principle which is ever concerned in the
development of secondary diseases; and we shall see, too, that
the principle is precisely the same as that which concerns the
curative effects of remedies when they operate upon remote parts
through the medium of another part; as in the curative effect of
the seton upon the inflamed eyes.
Let us then suppose that the seton is permitted to remain in
the neck after it has accomplished the cure of the eyes, till, final-
ly, it excites a severe degree of inflammation in the surrounding
skin. By-and-bye, we find the patient beginning to lose his ap-
petite, the tongue coats up, and other marks of a diseased state
of the stomach set in. This organ, therefore, has become in-
volved in disease in consequence of the neglected and irritative
state of the seton. Still, however, the mischief is allowed to go
on, and the eyes, which had been relieved by the seton, again
become inflamed. The seton has been the essential cause of
this round of phenomena; and since nothing can have been in-
troduced into the circulation, from beginning to end, we must
look to the nervous influence for the remote developments of
disease, as in the former case, for the curative results. The
seton, after the cure of the eyes, had taken on a higher and modi-
fied state of inflammatory action, and it transmitted to the brain
and spinal cord such influences as developed the nervous power
in greater intensity and a more morbific condition. This state
of the nervous power, being reflected abroad, fell with greater
force upon the stomach than on other parts, from its peculiar
susceptibilities, and its close natural relations with the skin and
cerebral system. The stomach has also the eyes much under

62
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
its control, and the eyes are now particularly liable to be inju-
riously affected by sympathies propagated from the stomach on
account of their recent inflammation, which left them in a more
than usually susceptible state. The stomach, therefore, in trans-
mitting its morbid impressions to the cerebro-spinal axis, coope-
rates with those from the seton in increasing the nervous influ-
ence; which, being determined with a morbific effect upon the
eyes, produces the ophthalmic inflammation. (See example of
hydrophobic virus, in Med. and Phys. Commentaries ; vol. 1,
p. 499.)
We have now to consider the natural tendency of the proper-
ties and actions of life to return from diseased to their healthy
states. The seton, as we have seen, is the sole cause of the new
developments of disease in the stomach and eyes, and these effects
are maintained by keeping up the irritative inflammation of the
skin. If, therefore, we withdraw the mechanical irritant from
the skin, the inflammation of the part will subside spontaneous-
ly; and having thus removed the exciting cause of disease in
the stomach and eyes, these parts, also, return spontaneously to
their healthy states. Thus it is, also, that the irritation of se-
tons, issues, blisters, &c., when applied over the joints, &c., for
the removal of inflammation of the ligaments or other tissues,
may, after having greatly fulfilled their purpose, ultimately keep
up a degree of the disease, or increase its intensity. But, if the
skin be now healed, the disease will subside spontaneously,—
the very healing of the skin reflecting salutary influences. This
recuperative law lies at the foundation of therapeutics, and it
shows us that the first and greatest step in the treatment of dis-
eases is to remove their exciting causes; when nature may re-
quire no other assistance from art.
The only remaining consideration to coinplete the essential
philosophy of the operation of remedial and morbific agents, re-
lates to the direct action of remedies in curing diseases of parts
to which they may be applied. If an emollient poultice, as it
is called, or opium, or leeches, &c., be applied to the inflamed
skin, they may hasten the subsidence of the inflammation. This
is done by their direct alterative action upon the diseased pro-
perties of the part, as in the case of morbific agents; and in
proportion to the subsidence of the primary affection may be
that of the sympathetic diseases. But, the sympathetic affec-
tions may be also hastened in their decline by the direct appli-

MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
63
cation of remedies to the sympathising parts; or, we may con-
tribute to the cure of the whole by addressing remedies directly
to one of the organs which has been sympathetically involved,
as to the stomach in the foregoing case; or, the sympathetic
affections may go on independently of the cure of the primary
disease, and require a distinct treatment; or, it may be necessary
to cure them first before the primary disease can be removed.
The diseased state of the stomach, for example, in the foregoing
case, may, in its turn, establish a morbid sympathetic influence
over the seton, and thus complicate the principle as to exciting
causes, and institute a mixed condition of sympathetic influences.
This, in fact, is more or less the case, in most diseases, after the
morbid state is propagated from the primary seat. In the ex-
ample now stated, all the diseased parts act and react upon each
other, each becoming a point of departure for the development
of a morbific nervous influence, and each affection, therefore,
contributing to maintain and aggravate the others. Other organs
join in, though perhaps not essentially disturbed, and take their
part in the disease, according to their degrees of affection, and
more or less, also, according to their relative vital importance
and constitutional relations; whilst the great movement of dis-
eased action may be variously influenced by the contingencies
which grow out of constitution, temperament, age, habits, ex-
ternal influences, &c.
The affection which has been celebrated under the name of
spinal irritation is virtually, in most cases, that disease of the
stomach which others have denominated indigestion. Where
the spinal cord is the seat of irritation, the principle is involved
which I have just stated, — forming an example of sympathetic
affection of the nervous tissue. In most of the cases, the primary
and important seat of disease is in the stomach, whilst the reme-
dies are apt to be abortively applied to the spinal cord. The
blow, on the contrary, should be struck at the gastric affection
upon which the sympathies depend; and, in a large proportion
of the cases, but little else is necessary than a rigorous attention
to food, exercise in the open air, and regular habits.
The state of the spinal cord is not worth a local remedy in
most of the cases; but, when the pain and soreness of the cord
is great, an injurious nervous power may be propagated back to
the stomach, and more or less relief will then be contributed by
the application of leeches and blisters along the spine ; or, in

64
MODUS OPERANDI OF REMEDIES.
fewer instances, the spinal irritation amounts to a degree of dis-
ease that must be cured before the original gastric affection will
surrender. (1) The “clergyman's sore throat” is another exam-
ple of this nature, and where the remedies should relate to the
diseased abdominal viscera.
If what I have now, and hitherto, laid before the profession,
be founded in nature, it is obvious that all of us, who would at-
tain a proficiency in the science of medicine, must carry out the
principle which is inculcated by the injunction, — “ nocturna
versate manu versate diurna.”
"I have not forgotten a remark," says my friend and late dis-
tinguished President of the Liverpool Medical Society, “ made
by a venerable professor in Edinburgh, (the late Dr. Duncan,
sen.,) in one of his introductory lectures, that a medical man
must make up his mind to be a student all his life ; and I
can with truth aver, that every year, nay, every day, adds farther
experience to fully confirm in my mind the truth and accuracy
of the remark." - DR. THOMAS JEFFREY's Address to the Liv-
erpool Medical Society, 1835.
(1) Dr. Holland has some luminous remarks upon this subject, which it will be
well for those to examine who fancy that the seat of the greatest disease is denoted
by the greatest pain. His statement, that in many cases, “recovery is derived, not
from remedies applied to the spine, but from steel, bark, ammonia, and valerian, cold
water bathing or washing, exercise, moral remedies, &c.” goes to confirm the sugges-
tions which I have made in the text. - Sei HOLLAND'S Medical Notes and Reflections,
p. 156.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.
TABLE I.
Tissues most liable to disease, especially to inflammation, in the order of
arrangement:
1. Mucous,
2. Venous, (venous congestion,
3. Cellular,
4. Serous,
5. Ligamentous, and dermoid, (fibrous,
6. Glandular,
7. Lymphatic,
8. Nervous,
9. Synovial,
10. Preriosteum, (fibrous,)
11. Osseous,
12. Tendons, cartilage, dura mater, and pericardium, (fibrous,)
13. Muscular,
14. Arterial.
TABLE II.
66
66
Parts of tissues most liable to disease, especially to inflammation, in the order
of arrangement:
of the nose,
lungs, fauces,
eyes,
Ilium,
small intestine, Jejunum,
1. Mucous texture,
Duodenum
stomach,
large intestine,
uterus and vagina,
bladder.
66
66
66
46
9

66
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.
of pia mater, in infancy and childhood,
66 liver,
66 small intestine,
pia mater of adults,
6 rectum, (piles,)
6 uterus, (phlebitis,
5 lungs, congestive asthma,
66 lower extremities, (varix,)
" spermatic cord, (circocele.)
subcutaneous,
of the lungs,
pia mater,
voluntary muscles.
66
66
of the lungs,
parietes of thorax,
parietes of abdomen,
liver,
small intestine,
large intestine,
heart and pericardium,
cerebral ventricles,
kidneys,
stomach.
66
66
66
66
lymphatic glands,
mammæ, (puerperal,)
salivary glands,
liver,
testis,
lacteal glands,
kidney,
thyroid gland, (goitre)
thymus gland,
pancreas.
of the lower extremities,
upper extremities,
uterus, (see Comm. vol. 2, p. 470,)
others rarely.
66
2. Venous texture, (forming,
mostly, venous congestion,
3. Cellular texture,
4. Serous texture,
5. Glandular texture,
6. Lymphatic texture,
7. Fibrous texture,
Cligaments,
dermoid,
periosteum,
cartilage,
tendons,
pericardium,
dura mater.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.
67
8. Nervous texture,
brain,
nerves,
ganglia of sympathetic,
spinal cord. (See p. 63.)
of the knee joints,
ankle,
joints of upper extremities.
9. Synovial texture,
66
10. Osseous texture,
.
s spongy bone,
solid bone.
11. Arterial texture,
of the brain,
arch of aorta,
extremities,
rare in other parts.
66
TABLE III.
Relative danger of high inflammation affecting the tissues of different organs,
according to the order of arrangement :
1. All textures of the brain.
2. All textures of the heart and pericardium.
3. Venous and lymphatic textures of the womb, iliac and other veins.
4. Peritoneum of abdomen, puerperal women.
5. Serous membrane of small intestine.
6. Veins of the liver, venous congestion in congestive fevers.
7. Parenchyma of lungs.
8. Glandular texture of liver.
9. Mucous texture of small intestines.
10. Mucous texture of stomach.
11. Serous texture of large intestine.
12. Textures of kidney.
13. Mucous texture of large intestine.
14. Serous texture of lungs and thorax.
15. Serous texture of liver.
16. Serous texture of abdominal parietes, (common inflammation.)
17. Veins of lungs, (low, or sub-active, forming congestive asthma. See
Comm. vol. 2. p. 494.)
18. Textures of bladder.
19. Mucous texture of uterus.
20. Ligaments.
21. Bone and cartilage.
22. Lymphatics of extremities.

68
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.
TABLE IV.
Tissues which require the greatest extent of general bloodletting, when
affected with high inflammation, — according to the organs in which they are
associated, and in the order of arrangement. The remedy is supposed to be
applied early.
1. All textures of the brain.
2. All textures of the heart and pericardium.
3. Serous texture of small intestine.
4. Peritoneum of abdomen, in puerperal women.
5. Parenchyma of lungs.
6. Serous texture of stomach.
7. Serous texture of large intestine.
8. Veins and lymphatics of uterus. (Early.)
9. Serous and glandular texture of liver.
10. Venous texture of liver. (Sub-acute, congestion in congestive fever.
Often more largely.)
11. Mucous texture of small intestine.
12. Uterus.
13. Textures of kidney.
14. Mucous texture of stomach.
15. Mucous texture of large intestine.
16. Serous texture of lungs and chest.
17. Serous texture of abdominal parietes. (Common inflammation.)
18. Ligaments. (Often more largely.)
19. Bladder.
20. Mucous texture of bronchiæ.
21. Mamma, testis, parotid gland.
22. Absorbents of extremities.

POSTSCRIPT.
69
POSTSCRIPT. — As a few copies only of the foregoing work have been dis-
tributed, 1 have thought it worth while to take a brief notice of an article
with which my 6 Examination of Reviews” has been honoured in the July
number, (1842,) of the British and Foreign Medical Review.
Dr. Forbes having hitherto chosen other vehicles than his own Journal for
his notice of my 5 Examination," we have a right to suppose that he would
put forth his whole strength whenever he might bring the British and Foreign
to bear upon the subject. But the only s point” of defence instituted is the
following:
“He has actually ministered to our gratification on a point generally considered
as touching all men most nearly, viz., the improvement of our exchequer. It is a
fact which Dr. Paine can any day verify, by a reference to our New-York publishers,
that in the quarter immediately succeeding his great advertisement of this Journal,
the demand for it in America was increased one twelfth !”—(Review, p. 213.)
From what I have hitherto shown of the statements of Dr. Forbes, and from
my knowledge of the falling off of his subscription in several instances in this
country, I availed myself of the privilege in the foregoing extract, and called
upon the publishers to learn how far this attempt to invalidate my “ Examina-
tion of Reviews” was founded in truth; and since, also, Dr. Forbes assumes
that he is a “ man of honour” to my disadvantage, I am reluctantly compelled
to submit the following facts to the public.
When I sent forth my 6 Examination of Reviews,” I obtained from the pub-
lishers of the British and Foreign Medical Review in this country the names of
near subscribers for the purpose of forwarding to them copies of the Examination.
The list was then very respectable in this city and neighbourhood. But it now
becomes my unwelcome duty to state that there are only one hundred and
twenty-one copies on the Publishers' list, for all North America — the United
States alone having more than 20,000 physicians. These copies are distri-
buted in the following manner : State of New-York 31 copies, (one being
taken by myself;) State of Pennsylvania 7; State of Georgia 1; State of
Maryland 22 ; State of Rhode Island 2 ; State of Massachusetts 41 ; District
of Columbia 1 ; State of South Carolina 12; State of Connecticut 2; CANADA
2=121.
It should be also understood that just prior to the publication of my “Ex-
amination,” an effort was made to improve the « Exchequer" by reducing the
subscription in this country from six to five dollars. Had there been, therefore,
an increase of subscribers, “a man of honour” would have imputed it to THE
CAUSE which was intended to touch all men most nearly."
Dr. Forbes is pleased to complain that, I have carefully transmitted my
publications by post to all the most eminent men in the profession in Great
Britain, and even on the Continent.” Hinc illæ lachrymæ.
This is in part true, so far as respects my pamphlets; but I have, in nearly
all the instances, paid for the freight and duties, not doubting that it would be
an indelicacy to pay the small European postage. Until, therefore, I learn
from some other source that the postage is onerous, I shall continue the same
practice with the present and any future publications; though I flatter myself
that no European gentleman will think it amiss should convenience sometimes
prompt me to send him a pamphlet through the post-office in this city. I may
also add, that my work on the Cholera Asphyxia, of which there were 2,000
copies, and six pamphlets, (besides the present of which there are 2,500 copies,)

70
POSTSCRIP.T.
have been distributed gratuitously. Of my « Examination” I published 2,000.
Upon the copies of this pamphlet which I sent to Europe I paid a freight and
duties of about fifty dollars, though I apprehend the nature of the work was such
as to have justified its transmission “ by post " from this country. My work on
the Cholera was bound, and a more bulky volume, and I therefore, at no little
trouble, paid the entire expenses of its transmission to its various places of
destination in Europe. I lament the necessity of these details; but it will be
seen that they have been rendered unavoidable.
Dr. Forbes is also pleased to refer to my Materia Medica, which, as I state
in the “ Preface," was not undertaken till within the last two months, and
has been carried on in the midst of many pressing engagements.” Indeed, the
plan of the work was not conceived till within that brief period, and amongst
the many engagements were seven or eight lectures a week, at the opening of
the new medical school.
The only objection, however, alleged against the work, is a pretended ob-
scurity of the “Instructions” to the reader as to certain figures and symbols
relative to the “combination of remedies,” which, as I state in the « Instruc-
tions,” were introduced “for the sake of brevity and to impress the memory.”
This plan of condensation for a manual of Materia Medica, and relating only
to the combination of remedies,” has met the approval of all, aye, even of
“students,” so far as my information has extended; and I shall therefore retain
it in the next edition. The examples given in the Review, as the reader will
find on comparison, are excessively mutilated, trickish, and rendered unintelli-
gible.
Though my relations to a foreign Journal are of such a nature that I cannot
refer to those who have honoured me with their correspondence since I published
my “ Examination of Reviews,” I may yet say, that I have had many letters
from the first medical philosophers in Europe, commendatory of my Materia
Medica, and a multitude warmly sustaining my • Examination.” I need scarcely
add, that whoever will turn to my Materia Medica will readily perceive that
Dr. Forbes has concealed from his readers the whole essential plan of the
work, and the manner in which it is executed ; and this the more so, as the
concealment is accompanied by the declaration that the 6
“arrangement adopted
by the author is somewhat different from that of preceding authors, but not so
much so as to be very noticeable by his readers.” It is true, the names of the
6 Classes," and the Orders in the first Class,” are stated by Dr. Forbes; but
this only with a view of misleading the reader as to the most important part of
the work, — all the details of arrangement, by which the relative therapeutic
value of all the articles of the Materia Medica is estimated according to experi-
ence, and set forth in consecutive order under the various classes, being wholly
original with myself. A greater artifice cannot be detected in modern criticism.
In respect to the statement that my Materia Medica sis dedicated to the for-
bearing consideration of Dr. John Forbes, and to his justice and honour,” it is
hardly worth while, perhaps, that I should say that the work is dedicated to
Professor Caldwell.
** In speaking of Dr. Hall's views at page 43, as well as in my remarks upon the nervous
power in its pathological and therapeutical relations, I should have referred to what I have said in
“Commentaries” on the subject of Sympathy, vol. 1, p. 157-158, and especially on the im-
portant influence of the ganglionic system of nerves in organic processes, and how this system is
physiologically related to the brain and spinal cord.
July 26, 1842. There are
my
the whole 980 species
only 30 under ,
,
Pa
1842 Paine, Martyn
Pa
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