Lectures on diet and regimen : being a systematic inquiry into the most rational means of preserving health and prolonging life. Together with physiological and chemical explanations, calculated chiefly for the use of families; in order to banish the prevailing abuses and prejudices in medicine / by A. F. M. Willich.

Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on diet and regimen : being a systematic inquiry into the most rational means of preserving health and prolonging life. Together with physiological and chemical explanations, calculated chiefly for the use of families; in order to banish the prevailing abuses and prejudices in medicine / by A. F. M. Willich. 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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    contain the more immediate caufe of the various fiindions of the foul; that there is a fluid, or at lead a vapour, fecreted from thefe parts, in con- fequence of the aftivity of the mind excrcifed in' the ventricles of the brain j and that all the changes of the intellect:, in human beings, depend upon the diverfity of the ftruidure of thefe ventricles, and the various dates of vigour and mental energy there difplayed. Without attempting to decide upon a quedion fo remote from huntan invedigation, I may be allowed to oblerve, that all conjetdures refpecling the feat of the foul are in reality frivolous and pre- mature, until we have afeertained, in what manner the important funftions of the brain, which is inti- mately connected and thoroughly blended with the nerves, are difeharged within the cranium ; whe- ther this be done by vibrations, by fecrecions of humours or vapours j or by the peculiar manner in which the numerous blood-veflTels are difpofed in the brain, fo as to allow, perhaps, the blood to exert its influence, and to produce all the changes going on in that' quarter, by the force and momen- tum of its own circulation j—all thefe particulars mud be afeertained, before we can form any jud conjeftures, as to the fituation of the foul. This much, however, is certain, that one of the principal offices of the nerves confids in communi- cating to the brain thofe irapreffions, which are made on the body, by external objefts. As foon as,