198 On the Operation of Medicines. 



the healing art which is in itfelf more intricate 

 and obfcure; nor any one that has undergone fo 

 many dodlrinal viciflitudes. It would trefpafs too 

 much on the time allotted for fuch difcuflions, 

 in this Society, to enumerate the multifarious 

 liypothefes which have been fupported by the 

 fucceffive fedlaries in phyfic, fince the days of 

 Hippocrates. On many of thefe I have animad- 

 verted in a work, publifhed near twenty years 

 ago*. And I ftiall now only requeft your can- 

 did attention to a few obfervationsj on the opi- 

 nions which are beginning to prevail in our 

 fchoolsj and your permiflion to offer fome hints 

 towards the extenfion o^^ur views, and the 

 methodizing of our experience, relative to this 

 curious and philolbphical fubjedl. 



Anatomy has now revealed the exquifite ftruc- 

 ture of our corporeal frame; and phyfiology has 

 taught us that, in its animated ftate^ the organs 

 of which it is compofed are reciprocally con- 

 nedled with, and delicately adjutted to each 

 other. The minuteft agent, therefore, may 

 excite a movement capable of being propagated 

 to any part of the fyftem, or even through the 

 whole of it, by a fympathetic energy, independent 

 and far beyond the power of the primary inftru- 

 ment of motion. From thefe prcmifes it is 

 inferred, agreeably to the fimplicity which fub- 



* Eff; ys Medical and Experimental, vol. I. 



fifts 



