TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 83 



Physiology. 



On a New Apparatus for supplying Warm Air to the Lungs. 

 By T. G. Hake, M.D. 



On the Correlation of Vitality and Mind loith the Physical Forces. 

 By Richard Fowler, M.D., F.R.S. 



The author began his paper with some observations of what constitutes force. Our 

 notions of it, he thinks, are acquired very early, from feelings of resistance to our 

 will ; for all forces are measured by the resistance they can overcome, i. e. the force 

 they can antagonize. When boys of apparently equal strength and equal courage 

 are seen to wrestle, we are impressed with a belief that he who fairly throws the 

 other has the most powerful muscular (vital) force ; but when we see that a spirited 

 boy of comparatively weaker muscular force cows and throws a larger boy of more 

 muscular strength, we then infer that mind was the force in the boy who more than 

 antagonized the vital force of the other. " What," asked Suwarrow, " is the strength 

 of an army ? " " The stomach ! " was the answer of his experience ; and the stomach, 

 the source of vital strength, is furnished with its materials by the physical forces 

 of motion, heat, and chemical affinities. Here then we have correlations of mind 

 with the vitality of its coil, and of vitality with the physical forces. Mind and 

 vitality have these analogies with the physical forces: — 1st, That all act through the 

 media of coils ; 2nd, that the manifestation of the force is directly as the fitness of the 

 coil, and that wherever an appropriate coil is presented, there the force will be ap- 

 parent to our senses. The chronometer as the measurer of time by space, the voltaic 

 trough and the coil of GErsted, and the heat and light from the spontaneous union of 

 hydrogen and oxygen in spongy platina, are satisfactory instances. 



The cretin affords an analogous instance with respect to the vital and mental forces. 

 Born with a corporeal coil fitted for both, their manifestation gradually becomes 

 obscure as the body is diseased ; but when again restored by the invigorating air, 

 exercise, food, and social converse of a mountain home, the forces of mind and vitality 

 reappear: here, is it not mind which devised the reparation of the mortal coil in the 

 case of the cretin, and which has devised the coils which vitality has materialized 

 for all the physical forces? Had then minds of the highest order been with- 

 held, the physical forces had wanted the coils by which they are now rendered so 

 effective; and if the physical forces had remained latent, the seed of plants and ova 

 of animals could not have become coils fitted for the activity of vitality and mind. 



Correlation of the Organs of Sense. — That these might be indifferently the antecedent 

 or sequent of each other's functions in effecting sensations or conceptions, occurred 

 to the author while in the year 1792 he was preparing a paper on Belief, which he 

 read to the Speculative Society of Edinburgh (see the History of the Society lately 

 published). It is the law of our organs of sense that a sensation or conception in any 

 one should excite a re-transmission to the adjusting muscles of all the other organs. 

 The most palpable instance of an analogous re-transmission from one nerve to many 

 muscles is from the nasal branch of the fifth pair in the act of sneezing. 



Doubts have been expressed whether these forces may not be really distinct and 

 independent forces, rather than modifications of one force, as conjectured by Mr. 

 Grove. There are however several analogies in support of Mr. Grove's hypothesis. 

 By the modification eftected by glands differently constructed, secretion of varied 

 qualities are produced from the blood ; different fruits from the same sap, modified 

 by grafts ; one thought may be modified as in words that are synonymous, and both 

 the thought and instinct of man or the lower animals are modified by their structure, — 

 " Many administrations, but the same spirit." As therefore the force is more or less 

 effective in ratio of its coil, and as coils for thinking or acting, in science, in arts, 

 and in the ordinary business of life, are formed by the adjusting muscles of the sen- 

 tient and voluntary functions of the body, is it not the business of education to 

 drill the coils, by which alone elevation and efficiency can be given to the force 

 of mind ? 



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