Sketches on animal life : an inaugural essay, submitted to the consideration of the Honourable Robert Smith, provost ; and of the regents of the University of Maryland / by John Cromwell, of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, member of the Baltimore Medical Society.

  • Cromwell, John, 1794-
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sketches on animal life : an inaugural essay, submitted to the consideration of the Honourable Robert Smith, provost ; and of the regents of the University of Maryland / by John Cromwell, of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, member of the Baltimore Medical Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    gative. May I be permitted to ask, for I will not forget that I am a stranger in the land of science. May I be permitted to ask, whether air, drink, food, exercise, wine, opium, mercury, and arsenick, are causes identically si- milar in kind, various only in force ? Is the natural con- sequence of natural action in the body, the same with the effect of hurtful causes, admiting the asserted modifica- tion ? Is disease and health one action, the former con- sisting in too much, or too little action ? And is this the only variety among diseases ? Are phrenitis and syphi- lis, small-pox and gout, measles and rheumatism, hoop- ing cough and scarlatina, all members of the same fami- ly ; having the same continuance, the same language, the same manners, and the same principles ? In short to come at the subject in question, is every effect of impres- sion upon the living principle, simply a reaction V Shall we then be safe in concluding that animal life bears no just parallel with the oscillations of a pendulum, or the vibrations of a musical chord. That it does not neces- sarily consist in any precise sum of effect produced by particular agents, which effect is individual and uniform ? The proof of this negative would rest with the fact, that those agents may be in a considerable degree weakened or withdrawn, without either death or disease occurring as a consequence. We know certainly, that the powers of the system will, (if I may use such phraseology,) make life for themselves, for a considerable time, under cir- cumstances the least friendly; and it is somewhat singu- lar that the^dvocates of indispensable force from foreign sources, should have cited in support of their opinion, the story of horses subsisting for three weeks upon cedar chips, and a dog living twenty days upon the indigestible cover of an old bible ; it is more extraordinary still, that