420 FUNCTIONS OF THE NERVES. [cii. in. 



on the liypothesis that the febrile irritation being diminished 

 after the first cupfuls are drawn^ the blood that remains in the 

 body is very similar to healthy blood. Clearer illustrations 

 are given by the celebrated Gaubius, and ^hich prove that all 

 the fluids of the body may be rapidly altered and vitiated 

 through the nerves. He observes/ " Ye wonder, my hearers, 

 and justly, at the great number of evils, which anger only 

 sheds over the body, as from Pandora's box. Nor is it 

 difficult to discover the origin of so great an evil, for in 

 addition to the fact, well established, that the motive forces 

 diffused through all the organs of the body are very powerfully 

 excited by that affection of the mind, and consequently that 

 the whole organism and the internal viscera, as well as the 

 vessels and their contained fluids, are agitated by most violent 

 movements, it is shown, beyond doubt, by an almost incredible 

 number of observations, that the natural properties of the 

 juices may be so altered, that with astonishing rapidity, the 

 bland becomes acrid, and the salubrious, hurtful, — nay, truly 

 virulent. Do you doubt this ? I give you the example of a 

 hysterical woman, who being seized, when in a passion, with 

 her disease, vomits vitiated bile of every colour and acridity; 

 of a nurse, whose breasts, when angry, supply poison instead 

 of food to the infant, causing death with horrid convulsions. 

 Tame domestic animals, when provoked, not only contract rabies 

 themselves, but transfuse it with the foaming poison of their 

 saliva into the man bitten by them. Two dunghill cocks fight 

 ferociously with each other, as is their habit ; a man interferes 

 to separate them; he is bit by one of them, and dies of 

 hydrophobia. You will, perhaps, allege in reply, that there is 

 a difference between man and brutes ; I will therefore give you 

 examples of our own species. A soldier quarrels with a woman, 

 who bites him in the hand; he is seized with rigor and dies. An 

 Italian youth, excited by rage, and unable to revenge himself, 

 bites his own hand, and is seized with a deadly fear of water, 

 as if bitten by a rabid dog. I am aware, and I do not hesitate 

 to confess it, that I am ignorant of the mode in which such 

 pestilent corruptions of the fluids are so suddenly excited ; but 

 this I think to have been attained by me, that you can under- 

 stand that the whole foundations of life are shaken by this 

 * Sermo alter de Regimine Mentis quod Medicorura est. Edit. Argent., 1776, p. 96. 



