CHAP. 5. ON VITAL FUNCTIONS. 183 



consists, as to its vital parts, of numerous 

 nervous fibres, which give sensative life, as it 

 seems, to all the parts, and compose different 

 organs of vitality and mind, but these must 

 have some mover.* We do not know that 

 this moving principle is electricity ; but it 

 seems reasonable to ascribe it to something in 

 the air ; because, deprived of good air, we soon 

 die. It would be vain to inquire into the 

 principle of life ; but as air is necessary to its 

 continuance, and as bad injures it ; so to some 

 peculiarity in the quality of the air must we 

 ascribe many unknown disorders, even were 

 there not remarkable appearances in the atmo- 

 sphere at the time of their prevalence. In 

 whatever way the nervous system may be 

 disturbed, a disordered action of the digestive 

 organs will be the probable consequence ; and a 

 state of nervous and digestive disorder being 

 once induced, other diseases may insue, to which 

 there may be a constitutional predisposition. f 



* See Somatophychonoologia on Body, Life, and Mind, &c. 

 by Philostratus. 8vo. Hunter, London, 1823. 



t This part of the subject has been well illustrated by M. 

 ABERNETHY, in his Surgical Observations on the Constitu- 

 tional Origin and Treatment of Local Diseases. London, 

 1813. It is difficult in certain states of the atmosphere t 



