3S THE REASON WHY 



My pulse as yours doth temperately keep lime, 

 And makes as healthful music." SHAKSPERE. 



106. Wliy may the organic life exist after the animal life hoe 

 perished ? 



Because the animal life is extinguished when sensation is 

 abolished, and voluntary motion can be performed no more. 

 But disease may abolish sensation and destroy the power of 

 voluntary motion, while circulation, respiration, secretion, excre- 

 tion, and the entire circle of organic functions continue to be 

 performed. 



107. The disease known as catalepsy affords the most striking illustration jf this 

 extraordinary condition of the system ; and the following is a case in point : A 

 young lady was seized with a fit of catalepsy while employed in netting ; she was 

 in the act of passing the needle through the mesh : in that position she became im- 

 movably rigid, exhibiting in a pleasing form a figure of death like sleep, beyond 

 the power of art to imitate, or the imagination to conceive. Her forehead was 

 serene, her features perfectly composed. The paleness of her colour, and her 

 breathing, which at a distance was scarcely perceptible, operated in rendering the 

 similitude to marble more exact and striking. The position of her fingers, hands, 

 and arms, was altered with difficulty, but preserved every form of flexure they 

 acquired; nor were the muscles of the neck exempted from this law, her head 

 maintaining every situation in which the hand could place it, as firmly as her 

 limbs. 



108. Why is it erroneous to suppose that deep-seated vital organs 

 have what is ordinarily termed "feeling ?" 



Because (taking the heart as an illustration) the pulsation of the 

 heart may be felt through the side, and those arteries which lie 

 near the surface may be felt to beat. After violent exertion or 

 excitement, too, the pulsation of the heart may be felt, and in 

 imagination at least, if not in reality, heard without the application 

 of the hand to any part of the body. But the circulation of the 

 blood is never felt, and the heart itself gives us no internal evidence 

 of its existence. 



109. A well-authenticated case of the insensibility of the heart to feeling of any 

 kind, is furnished by the celebrated Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the 



<iood, as follows : A young nobleman had a portion of the parietes of the side 

 destroyed by an abscess, consequent upon a fall. The wound healed, but without 

 tho restoration of the parts which had been destroyed by the abscess, and the heart 



