The influence of climate, and other agents on the human constitution with reference to the causes and prevention of disease, among seamen : with an account of the epidemic fever of Jamaica / by Robert Armstrong.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of climate, and other agents on the human constitution with reference to the causes and prevention of disease, among seamen : with an account of the epidemic fever of Jamaica / by Robert Armstrong. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    various as the organization itself ; even in the same being, at different times, and under different circum- stances, its manifestations are never the same. Cog- nizable by our senses only when in connexion with organized structure, we find it elevated or exalted, and depressed or impaired, according to the perfection, or disorder, of the organic apparatus. The amount of vitality seems to depend upon the energy with which the nervous and sanguiferous systems perform their functions. When under the influence of wine, or other stimulants, the heart acts with increased force and fre- quency; a greater quantity of blood is propelled into the capillaries; the face is flushed, and there is a greater production of animal heat, as indicated by the general glow of warmth which pervades the surface of the body. “The evolution of heat,’* says Bichat, “is always subordinate to the state of the vital power. According as the tone is languid or exalted in a part, this part possesses more or less heat.”* The intimacy of the connexion be- tween the nervous and vascular systems, is strikingly displayed by the effects of moral emotions. In the blush of shame, the blood is instantly propelled to the capillar- ies, by one of those fine sympathies which appears to sub- sist between the mental and physical parts of our nature, communicating a crimson suffusion to the face and neck, and often as transient as the cause from which it origi- nated. Under the depressing influence of grief, fear, or exhaustion, the circulation is languid, and the power of producing heat diminished. A similar physiological state of the system exists to a certain extent, during sleep; the voluntary motions are suspended; the nervous system remains in a state of quiescence, or * Anatomic G6n6rale, Par Xavier Bichat, Tome 2. a Paris, 1818, p. 49.