76 EFFECTS OF 



allowed to be one that is deserving of investiga- 

 tion, as it does not appear unreasonable to ex- 

 pect that such physiological investigations may 

 hereafter lead to some practical improvements in 

 the healing art. This consideration, I hope, will 

 be regarded as a sufficient apology for my pursu- 

 ing a mode of inquiry, by means of experiments 

 on brute animals, of which we might question 

 the propriety, if no other purpose were to be 

 answered by it than the gratification of curiosity. 

 In my former communication on this subject, I 

 entered into a detailed account of the majority of 

 the experiments which were made. This I con- 

 ceived necessary, because, in the outset of the 

 inquiry, I had been led to expect that even the 

 same poison may not always operate precisely in 

 the same manner. But I have since had abun- 

 dant proof that, in essential circumstances, there 

 is but little variety in the effects produced by 

 any one poison, when employed on animals of 

 the same, or even of different species, beyond 

 what may be referred to difference in quantity, 

 or the mode of its application, or of the age 

 and power of the animal. This will explain the 

 reason of my not detailing, in the present 

 communication, so many of the individual ex- 

 periments from which my conclusions are drawn, 

 as in the former. At the same time I have not 

 been less careful to avoid drawing general con- 

 clusions from only a limited number of facts. 

 Should these conclusions prove fewer and of less 

 importance than might be expected, such defects 



