Medicine. 219 



This restricted view of the subject is preferred, on 

 the present occasion, not only on account of the 

 requisite brevity, but because the chief design of 

 introducing this sketch of ihe progress of physi- 

 ology is to consider it in subserviency to medical 

 science, and as preparatory to the remarks which 

 are to follow concerning the theory and practice of 

 physic. 



At the close of the seventeenth century, physi- 

 ology presented a chaos of the wildest and most 

 disoordant principles. The extravagant notions 

 of the Galenists and Chemists had indeed ceased to 

 be geneiallv defended; but they were succeeded 

 by those of the mathematicians, which were nearly 

 as far removed from truth and nature. The dis- 

 coverv of the circulation of the blood, in the be- 

 ginning of the seventeenth century, had given rise 

 to the introduction of mechanics into medical doc- 

 trines. And as that system of philosophy was 

 founded upon the general laws of nature, the 

 ablest physiologists of the day were easily induced 

 to apply it to the human body; which was sup- 

 posed to differ only from the rest of the universe 

 in the variety and complexness of its machinery. 



Bellini, of Florence, was the first who at- 

 tracted much attention by the introduction of ma- 

 thematics into physiology. Professor Borelli pur- 

 sued the same course of reasoning, and soon be- 

 came one of its most enthusiastic admirers. He 

 employed it so well in showing how the muscles 

 act as cords, and the bones as levers, that he thence 

 undertook to explain, with happy effect, the phe- 

 nomena of standing, walking, leaping, flying and 

 swimming, in different animals/ Emboldened 

 by the success of his first attempt, he afterwards 

 ventured to explain, on the principles of mechar 



r Sec 'his work, De m^tn tntmaikmt 



