OR CONTRACTED SINEWS. 573 



tiire is that lamenefs which remains after all 

 traces of inflammation have vaniflied. and to 

 fpeak technically, the finews have regained their 

 original finenefs? Every pra6lical man will 

 recognize this as a general cafe. Mr. Blaine, 

 as might be well expelled, mufl; be " up to the 

 height of the mode," and nothing can be more 

 laughably afFe6led, than his fafliionable fubfli- 

 tutes o^mufcular extenfion, exteiifion oftheJJioul- 

 der, violence done to theJJieatk of the tendons, 

 and his '^Jirains^ as the farriers call them T If he 

 really have any meaning on the fubjeft, of which 

 my doubt is confiderable, does not he intend by 

 extenfion, improper elongation ? and does he 

 not prefcribe, in the cafe, thofe medicines which 

 we old-fafhioned and vulgar folk call bracers, 

 or aftringents, with the view of reducing elon- 

 gation, or bringing parts into a nearer contaft, 

 in order to flrengthen or confolidate them? 

 And what is all this, but the completeft acknow- 

 ledgment of thofe phyfiological phenomena, 

 the ftridum, and the laxum? What reader of 

 the homefpun ordpr of common fenfe, but mufl: 

 fmile, at the extreme caution in page 647, leafl: 

 the words bracers or allringents, prompted by 

 nature, might inadvertently IHp out. Mr. 

 Blaine fuppofes, that generally, a lefion.of 

 fibres is more probable than an extenfion or re- 

 laxation : an idea totally unphilofophical, and 

 which, if true, would render every mufcular ex- 

 ertion moft precarious : the animal thread, from 



its 



