CHAP. 5. ON VITAL FUNCTIONS. 189 



a stimulus exhausting to the strength; but 

 whether they prove uniformly injurious in pro- 

 portion to the quantity of pure spirit which 

 they severally contain, or whether the different 

 kinds of spirituous drinks cause different specific 

 actions, is a point which, I think, has never 

 been determined. Doctor Lambe considers 

 animal food and impure water as exhausting 

 stimuli ; but he seems to think their respective 

 actions on the system as somewhat different. 

 If they do actually contain deleterious sub- 

 stances, the doctrine about which however seems 

 very vague and inconclusive, their evil influence 

 may be increased, in certain states of disease, by 

 the lacteals losing their discriminating power, 

 and, like common absorbents, drinking up unas- 

 similated or noxious matter, in consequence of 

 a disordered state of the chylopoietic system. 

 In these cases, then, attention to regimen must 

 be particularly necessary. Such a view of the 

 subject as this enables us, in some measure, to 

 reconcile the beneficial effects of vegetable diet 

 on many persons, with the apparent health of 

 others who live chiefly on flesh. To return from 

 the digression into which I have unavoidably 

 been led : those persons are most likely to be 

 disordered by atmospheric peculiarities, who 



