220 Medicine, 



nism, all the internal motions and their proximate 

 causes. On the same ground he gave a minute ac- 

 count of the pulsation of the heart, of the circu- 

 lation of the blood, of the office of the lungs, the 

 kidneys and the liver, of the nervous fluid, and the 

 semen, of vegetation, generation, nutrition, hun- 

 ger, thirst, pain, lassitude, and febrile heat.' By 

 this ardent speculatist all nature w^as interpreted on 

 mathematical principles; for, except the mecha- 

 nical, he was willing to admit no other secondary 

 powers in nature. He thought, with Plato, that 

 the Deity himself was always geovietrising ; and 

 was fully persuaded that physical knowledge could 

 only be acquired through the medium of geometri- 

 cal demonstrations and forms. 



With what eagerness and zeal Dr. Pitcairn 

 adopted mechanical physiology, and to what un- 

 reasonable extremes he was disposed to carry it, is 

 sufficiently known. So attached was he to the ge- 

 ometrical mode of demonstration, that he appeared 

 to consider it as the only species of evidence, ex- 

 cepting the senses, that deserved any reliance. 



These opinions were warmly adopted and sup- 

 ported by the illustrious Boerhaave, who first ap- 

 peared as a public teacher about the beginning of 

 the eighteenth century. He exhibited the first 

 successful example of combining physiology with 

 anatomy, reduced the former from a rude and 

 chaotic into a regular state, and conferred upon it 

 that systematic and elegant form which so greatly 

 recommended it to the notice and admiration of 

 the world. But a more particular account of the 

 opinions of this distinguished physician will be 

 given under a succeeding head. 



Baron IIaller, the disciple of Boerhaave, 

 pursued the steps of his master, and far surpassed 

 him in his physiological career. He made a uni^ 

 versal collection of preceding discoveries in ana- 



