120 



life is regulated. Tlje varieties of life or excitement are also said to 

 be two, viz. a state which is above and a state which is below a 

 given standard; all this may be very true, and yet we are very little 

 the wiser for it; it is equally true that life is life, that life is either 

 good or bad, and that when life ceases death begins. 



6. And with respect to our contractilities: their enumeration is 

 very correct, but they lead to the mistake of considering phenomena 

 in relation only to quantities and degrees where an altered consti- 

 tution has taken place. 



7. Thus supposing the action of the heart to furnish the 

 criterion of the proper state of health, and that the precise standard 

 of it, estimated by the frequency of its movements, consists within 

 the range of from 60 to 80 beats in a minute. Now the heart 

 might assume an action of the following kind: the first day of 

 change it may beat at the rate of 96 in a minute, the second at the 

 rate of 110, the third at the rate of 100, the fourth at the rate of 90, 

 the fifth at 72, and the sixth at 60. We see these fluctuations, and 

 our experience allows us to be capricious in assigning the order of 

 variation. At another time the action of the heart shall on the first, 

 second, ( or third day also reach 110; but instead of being reduced 

 by the sixth day to 60, it shall for monlhs fluctuate between 90 and 

 120, and may even reach 160; and whereas the accession of disease 

 in the first case terminated in recovery in six days, the termination of 

 the second may be at the end of six months in death. In these two 

 cases the rate of pulsation, the degree of action, was at some times 

 precisely similar. Why, when in the latter, as in the former case the 

 pulsations were at 90, did not the same termination ensue? The 

 answer is very obvious: it is because the heart was affected by 

 two different diseases, by which we imply, that the principle 

 which governs the action of the heart had assumed two different 

 conditions. 



8. We have the same testimony from the actions which we 

 observe in any particular structure, in diseases whether purely local 

 or conjoined with an altered constitutional diathesis. Thus two 

 cases of pneumonia shall be equally violent, one shall have termi- 

 nated in resolution in twelve or fourteen days, the other in the for- 

 mation of an abscess; in one the heart shall have regained, in less 

 than a fortnight, its healthy rate of action, in the other this action 

 shall never be restored. Why was pus formed in one case and 

 not in the other! We have just grounds for believing that the rate 

 of pulsation, &c. in the affected vessels was the same; further, 

 vessels will sustain any degree of circulation without forming pus; 

 we must therefore say that some other cause, some other condi- 

 tion of disease operated in one case and not in the other, which 

 governed the termination respectively. 



9. Thus, also, in some persons (those of a nervous tempera- 

 ment) the pulse shall be raised at one time to 100 in a minute, while 

 the subject is conscious of the possession of perfect health; at 

 another time iu the same subject the pulse shall not exceed 90 or DO, 



